Birds and Bumblebees
by Phoenix13
Summary: 2007 MOVIEVERSE Bumblebee has been taught everything he needs to know about being a warrior. Except when it comes to meeting female Autobots. Ch.19 The rescue mission to save Marin and Major Lennox from Starscream gets underway.
1. Chapter 1

**Birds and Bumblebees**

AUTHORS NOTE: This takes place several years after Sam destroyed the Allspark by pushing it into Megatron's chest. As some other author's have suggested (thank you!), the Autobot's battleship, the _ARK_, has been landed on Earth and camouflaged/hidden from human eyes on the far outskirts of the town, Tranquility, from the movie.

The Decepticons never returned to Earth, despite Optimus Prime and the others warily awaiting the return of Starscream and his re-enforcements. Barricade was left on Earth to his own amusement and was rarely seen.

The message sent by Optimus Prime out into the universe, 'We are here. We are waiting', has been responded to and a steady trickle of Autobots are arriving and making Earth their new home. The message has in particular attracted a great deal of female Autobots; correctly referred to in Cybertronian terminology as femme or femmes; to arrive on Earth as a safe haven. A large percentage of femmes had left their home planet Cybertron to escape being obliterated, seeking sanctuary on other planets, in other cultures, for their own safety (and to have a life other than war). Very few femmes became warriors like Elita One, Chromia and Arcee (to name a select few).

**Chapter One**

Bumblebee stood back warily, pressing his heavily armored rear end to the wall of the exposed walkway to make more room. The new arrivals currently streaming past him had collectively brought the population of ARK City to fifty-seven Autobots, in total. For the first time, femmes now made up a healthy twenty percent of the population!

The optics of the yellow mech were alternately interested and shy of the femme arrivals. Almost none of the femmes he laid optics on bore any kind of armor. Only shallow delicate coverings designed to be attractive and fashionable. Nothing that would withstand any kind of Decepticon assault, certainly. Nor could he see evidence of weaponry. A few of the female's seemed scared by his own obvious military allegiance; bright yellow armor, the barrel of his solar particle cannon peeking out from behind his forearm until transformed, oversized 'muscular' limbs, his battle mask wedged atop his head. Those femme's took the wider path around him, hurrying themselves along.

Bumblebee had not been exposed to situations like this before. Ever since he was a sparkling, he had been raised in a concentrated military environment, on battleships, and inside fortified bases. Taught to defend himself and be offensive from the very beginning. He had never had a taste of what proper civilian life was like.

Actually, he'd never been confronted by an unattached femme before...

* * *

"Ironhide?" 

The Weapons Specialist looked up from the personal data terminal on his desk, seeing the yellow bot hovering uncertainly in his doorway. "Eh? Bumblebee."

Ironhide rubbed a hand over the side of his head. "Damn, I hate this office slag. You up for a bit of speed burning around the foothills later?" the older mech asked, looking exceptionally grumpy. Despite the war being unofficially declared on its last legs, the black & grey mech still bore his characteristic cannons. Bumblebee suspected the mech spent his life recharging on his back, since lying in any other position with a massive cannon on either arm was a physical impossibility. Ironhide NEVER removed them. Bumblebee wondered what Chromia had to say about that.

"Okay," Bee nodded. His suspension was in for a pounding again. Ironhide didn't allow for Bee's racing car form not taking well to rocks on the forest trails. He wandered into the small office-type room. Ironhide glanced sideways at the smaller and younger warrior, watching the bot moving around the room uneasily. _Something is up_, Ironhide mused, turning his head to the left to keep track of Bee as he did a circle behind him and around the desk.

"Cough it up, Bee."

"Huh?" Bee halted, sparkling blue optics blinked their covers at him.

Ironhide squinted the ages old slashed and scarred optic on the right of his face, "What's clawing at your spark today?"

Bumblebee didn't have much of a mouth. Most of his expression came from his incredibly expressive optics, optic arches and curved cheek ridges. It was clear to Ironhide from studying Bee's face that the Autobot was both worried and embarrassed by something.

"If you don't get out what's bothering you, I'm leaving to go blow up whatever it is, by taking a guess," Ironhide said crankily. Straight to the point with violence, as always.

Bumblebee's faceplate lit up with a cheeky expression, "Even if it's Optimus?"

"Nope. He is the one and only exception. Is there someone else I can explode the arse off for you?"

"You're very reliable that way, 'Hide," said Bumblebee, his optics narrowed in amusement.

"I aim to please myself. And what the crap, may I ask, are you really here for?"

"Ah," Bee's head, dipped forwards, his optics focusing on the floor. "Um, well. I'm here for.. I need to ask.. something."

Ironhide's colossal shoulders hitched themselves up. His optics darkened. The fingers of one cannon wearing arm drummed on the desk in irritation. Waiting.

Bumblebee forced his words out with a rush.

"Idon'tknowhattodowithfemmes." Bee stood still. His arms hung straight down by his sides. He couldn't look up from the floor.

Ironhide's optics narrowed. "You WHAT?"

"Femmes. I haven't had any training, you know? I think it got left out of my scheduled formatting." Bumblebee was talking to the floor. He just could NOT look up.

_Dear Primus_, Ironhide's mouth worked but nothing came out. The youngling was asking him about females. He did a split second clear out of his data banks, searching his memory. Come to think of it, he didn't ever recall discussing anything about femme's with the little bot. The education of Bumblebee in nearly everything was the responsibility of Optimus and himself. Maybe Prime had said something but Bumblebee had forgotten? Not likely. Anything Optimus said was seared forever in Bee's loving memory storage.

Ironhide stood up from his seat. "I think we need to go and see Prime about this."

"Do we?" Bumblebee said desperately, his hands clenching by his sides. _Not Optimus, PLEASE_ _no! Doesn't Ironhide understand?._

"Yep. We do." _And slag it, if the Femme Magnet ducks out of this one I am breaking my own_ _rules about shooting him!_ Ironhide cursed to himself. He placed one hand on each of Bumblebee's shoulders, turning him around and pushing him out the door. "Lets go, move it soldier!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Birds and Bumblebees**

AUTHORS NOTE: For anyone worried that there might be gruesome icky descriptions of spark sex or human-style sex in this fic; never fear. There will be nothing like that here. It will all be clean and nice. I might do something later on as a special chapter, but it won't be showing up on FFN.

This fic is purely for the fun of messing around with poor Bee and his anxiety over femmes. And I must say; Optimus is even more useless in that respect than Ironhide is! So much for Bumblebee's expectations of mature experienced mech's being able to help him with advice. HA! But maybe I'm giving too much away...

And _italics_ mean Comlink conversation in this chapter. FFN is wiping out my brackets. Grrr.

**Chapter 2**

"Slaggin' glitch, he's harder to track down than the Allspark was," Ironhide grumbled, after he had re-directed himself and Bumblebee for the third time in their search for their Commander. Optimus was moving around the ARK and the surrounding land at the same speed they were. They couldn't connect up.

Bumblebee had to continually do little running steps to keep up with Ironhide's long determined strides.

Finally, they caught up with him. Optimus had transformed outside the main entrance ramp to the ship and was waiting for a trailer load of supplies to be attached to his cab, for him to haul inside. The load was massive and some of the helping military humans were doubtful the Autobot could pull it.

"He'll pull it, he'll pull it, just move out of the way. He's not one of your Earth trucks," Ironhide bellowed, and waved aside one stubborn army soldier who was insisting on the trailer load being lightened.

Of course, Optimus had no trouble moving the load. It was only when Ironhide thought it would be funny to comlink a question to his truck friend just as the trailer was halfway up the steep ramp, that 'trouble' happened.

Ironhide grinned manically as he manipulated his comlink, _Hey Optimus, Bumblebee needs a bigger recharge bed, he and his new girlfriend keep falling off his since its only a single width wide._ _Can he use your triple width bed tonight? Don't want the poor little guy hurting_ _himself hitting the floor._ Ironhide's tone was deadly serious.

Optimus' rumbling straining engine cut out with a disturbing clunk.

"IRONHIDE! That was not funny!" Optimus snapped at his Weapons Specialist. Steam came out of the twin vent exhaust stack's on top of his cab.

Ironhide grinned, rocking on his feet, hands tucked behind his back. Bumblebee looked back and forth between the elder mech's. "What did you say?" the yellow bot asked.

Soldier's scattered, grabbing ropes and placing wheel blocks. The Autobot's ignored the human help.

"I told him you had finally found a girlfriend and you wanted to borrow his personal quarter's tonight because his recharge bed was bigger."

Bumblebee's optics flared and he made strange choking noises, bending over and coughing. His vocaliser went on the fritz again, leaving him, literally, speechless. He settled for firing off furious comlink messages to Ironhide, _You're sick! SICK! Why you would think that was FUNNY is_ _beyond me!._ Bumblebee's optics glared death up at Ironhide. This wasn't the type of help he needed! He must've been nuts to think Ironhide could handle such private information with dignity. _I should've thought to find a mech who could be more sincere about this!_ he blasted across the comlink.

The grey mech merely kept chuckling, "Like who? Sunstreaker?" Ironhide said. He was having fun.

Bumblebee miserably thought about his friend Jazz again. Jazz had been the Femme Expert. Popular with every female in existence and a proper gentleman. Usually. This was yet another situation in which Jazz was missed dearly.

Optimus backed himself cautiously down the ramp to the ground to begin his ascent again. This time his engine let off the most furious roar as it hit the rev limit and moved up the ramp too fast, crunching over the wheel blocks before anyone could remove them. The human soldiers winced and stuck fingers in their ears.

The flame-covered truck disconnected itself from the load and transformed. Optimus' hulking form came stomping down the ramp. "Explain," his voice grated out menacingly, staring at both of his men. Ironhide laughed, slapping Bumblebee on the back. Bee choked again, spluttering.

"Bee here needs some help with femme's. He doesn't know where to start. I thought you could help him with advice. He wants to get a girlfriend and all that."

Prime's expression changed from menacing to confused. "He needs...? Oh. Really?"

"He's not such a youngling any more, Prime," Ironhide said. "And I think we better take this conversation somewhere else." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

The optics of the three mech's met the organic eyes of the curious humans, who had paused in their work and were staring open-mouthed at the tall robots. Listening in, obviously. More than one of the humans would have dreams that night of Transformers doing strange things.

"Right, of course, follow me," Optimus muttered. He transformed again and pulled out down the road past the ARK. Ironhide and Bumblebee shifted forms and followed. Bumblebee did some furious thundering drive-by's close to Ironhide, missing the warrior by a hair's width each time.

Angry, Ironhide swung open one of his doors as the Camaro charged by, grazing the paint of the yellow sports car. Bumblebee squealed, and it was on. Both bots transformed while still moving, tumbling over each other with their momentum, wrestling and punching in the dirt.

Ironhide ended up on the bottom, holding onto Bee's fisted hands and keeping them from moving as the mech tried to punch him. Optimus hit his brakes and transformed, coming up behind the combatants.

"Stop it you two!" Prime's arm swooped down and plucked Bumblebee off Ironhide, leaving Bee swinging in the air like a puppy, held by the back of his neck. Optimus dropped him to his feet, disgusted at such behaviour. Bumblebee hissed at Ironhide. The Weapons Expert beckoned him to 'bring it on' with one lazy hand.

"Don't think finding a femme will endow you with instant maturity and super intelligence, Bumblebee. Look at Ironhide for example. Chromia hasn't managed to change him at all." Optimus said gravely, hands on hips.

From his ungainly position in the grass on his back, complete with mud stains, Ironhide lifted his head and swore, "Frag off, Prime." He slowly got to his feet, wiping grass off his body. "I could say the same about you with Elita."

Optimus growled, head lowering. "I don't drive like a sparkling and nor do I have stupid fights by the side of the road."

"Yeah, but that's because of that stick someone put up your aft."

With a roar, Ironhide got leapt upon by a furious mass of red and blue flamed truck. Ironhide was stranded on his back for the second time that day. And this time he couldn't protect himself from the punches and Prime was too heavy to be moved. Ironhide swore. The cannon on each of his arms powered up with a whine, their internal gyro's spinning.

"What the...?" Driving past the sad situation, Arcee couldn't stop herself fast enough. She could swear that was Optimus and Ironhide by the side of the road – fighting?!

She shifted into her robot form and halted next to Bumblebee. One deep purple and black accented finger pointed curiously at the fighting mech's. "Is that..?"

"Yes." Bumblebee's voice crackled as his vocaliser warmed up to working status.

"Fighting?"

"Yeah."

"Shouldn't we stop them?!"

"Nah. Ironhide deserves it." Bee snickered into one hand.

"Primus almighty..." Arcee walked forwards and aimed a solid kick into Prime's thigh from behind.

-THUMP-

"Owww! The Pit!!" Optimus paused in the blow he was aiming at Ironhide and swung his head around. Arcee was standing there, petite arms crossed over her cute chest. She wasn't a happy or amused looking femme. Her purple paintjob sparkled dangerously in the sunlight. Dark optics topped off the effect.

"When was the last time you were in detention, Prime? Get off Ironhide and stop this stupidity," Arcee demanded. "Do I need to call Prowl out here?"

Bumblebee giggled but changed it into a cough when Optimus' optics met his.

Suddenly sheepish, Optimus flexed his powerful thick thighs and rose up off his sitting position on Ironhide's waist. Saying nothing, he extended a hand to help up Ironhide in a truce. Ironhide thought about grabbing the hand and throwing Prime over his shoulder. Thinking better of it and grunting sadly at this realisation, he ignored the offer of help and got to his feet himself.

Arcee shook her head, "I truly don't want to know what this was about, you've got the CPU's of frigging sparklings..." she muttered, swinging around on one foot and transforming. Her elegant BMW M3 Series 7 Coupe vehicle mode accelerated back down the road.

Taking on Arcee's serious manner, Bumblebee held his head up proudly, giving his guardians a disdainful look. "I thought I asked for help with femmes, not you two getting forcibly separated by one."

"Sorry," Optimus muttered, looking at his feet.

Ironhide shrugged. "Yeah, what he said."

**ANOTHER AUTHORS NOTE**: Yeah, I've made Arcee into a car vehicle. A flashy but performance-packed BMW. I cannot STAND her as a motorcycle, pink or not. I know this means she will be bigger in her bipedal form, because of the mass of the BMW, but I'll live with that. Chicks shouldn't have to be funny looking bikes, IMHO.


	3. Chapter 3

**Birds and Bumblebees**

AUTHORS NOTE: Comlink chatter is displayed in _italics_. FFN is making one end of my enclosing brackets disappear, unfortunately. Can't see a way to fix it, so _italics_ it is!

**Chapter 3**

Bumblebee followed his two mentors patiently, the road rumble beneath his wheels producing a sweetly calming effect on his sensors. He hadn't recharged well last night. Even in recharge, his thoughts ran wild, his downtime programs stuttering wildly under the load of his anxiousness. He desperately wanted to know how to talk to femmes. How to interact with them. Yet his desperation was tinted heavily by terrifying fear. What on Cybertron would a femme see in him that they could possibly want? What could he do to make himself more, er, attractive? With all the huge, masculine, and handsome mech's around, why would a small, young, only-moderately-good-looking and very inexperienced mech catch their interest?

His sensors displayed images of the two bots using the road in front of him. Optimus Prime. Talk about a femme's wildest dreams. Everything about that mech was insane (according to femme gossip, which automatically became mech gossip, which EVENTUALLY reached Bee's eager audio receptors) - tall, broad, intelligent, gentle, mature, strong, handsome; able to beat off just about any Decepticon attack and packing one of the largest & most fearsome laser rifles of the entire Autobot army. Not to mention being The Boss, a power trip any female was hungry for.

It was no surprise that femmes just about fainted in his presence - except Arcee, she aimed kicks at him and threatened to sick Prowl on his head! Bumblebee snickered to himself. Heck, even IRONHIDE called him 'The Femme Magnet', and 'Hide wasn't a mech to swoon or make comments over anyone in that respect.

Surely, if anyone could, Optimus would have some plan or advice to help him? He had to be experienced enough to pass on critical mission information.

Bumblebee skidded to a halt behind the trucks in front of him when they came to a stop, shaking himself out of his musing thoughts and rapidly transforming. He ran a few steps to keep up with the bots who were stalking ahead off the road into the thick forest.

_Ironhide, why would you think I could tell the youngling anything that would make_ _his quest any easier_? Optimus spoke to his friend over his personal comlink. He kept his optics down, watching his step as he led his friends into a part of the forest devoid of humans and very private. He caught the disgusted look Ironhide was shooting at him in his peripheral vision.

_Like I would know any better than you would, you're the Femme Magnet! The kid wants help. Give him some! He wants to know about femmes and spark interfacing, he's old enough to know and you should be the one doing the explaining, _Ironhide sent back to his friend. The grey mech's optics, darkened, giving Optimus a fearsome sideways look.

_I don't think I hit you hard enough in the head_, Optimus responded darkly, coming to a stop. Ironhide growled at him.

They had reached the edge of a small clearing. Trees tall enough to tower over the height of the Transformers surrounded them on three sides. In front of them was a cliff edge which gave a beautiful panorama of the valley running behind the Autobot's base of operations. It was similar to the 'Outlook' location in Tranquillity most of the Autobots and humans used, but a lot more sheltered.

A click and whistle of appreciation came from Bumblebee. The yellow bot stopped close to the cliff edge, looking down, one metallic foot braced on the rocky verge.

Ironhide sat down on the grass, rolling onto his side and bending one knee up, dangling one wrist from his knee joint. He leant his head on one propped up hand. "Don't fall over the edge, runt. You'll miss Prime's 'Where Did I Come From' speech."

"Ironhide!!" A rock bounced off the grey mech's armored head. Prime glared at his Weapons Specialist.

"I'll jam that rock somewhere personal and so firmly that Ratchet won't be able pry it loose," Ironhide snapped back. The two mech's locked wrathful glares at each other.

Bumblebee gave a shrill whistle of annoyance, turning to face the mech's with the palms of his hands on his hips.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Ironhide rolled onto his back, slipping both his hands behind his head, knees drawn up. His cannons angled on his forearms made deep impressions in the earth. "Get on with it, Casanova."

Prime sighed, ending it with a groan, passing the fingers of one hand over his faceplates. He didn't need this. He should have been back at the base, doing any number of important tasks that overflowed his processor with urgent need. His tired gaze fell on his much loved Bumblebee. The yellow bot was very precious to him. Why shouldn't he spend some quality time helping our his favourite little bot? Prime smiled. Little bot indeed. While Bumblebee was a youngling, true, he was also an experienced and deadly fighter, quick on his feet and with an impossibly fast thinking CPU. These attributes kept him alive. His kindness, sensitivity and general bubbly demeanour were also important assets to the Autobot cause.

Optimus straightened his slumping shoulders with renewed vigour. Bumblebee was going to get any help he could give him. He looked over at Bee, seeing the mech staring up at a tree with his hands spread out on the trunk, trying to get a look at a bird rustling around on a branch above his head.

"Kid, that's not the right kind of bird you should be looking at," Ironhide chided, smirking.

Bumblebee slanted a querying look at the Weapons Specialist, dropping his hands to his sides. He didn't understand.

"Bird, Bee, its one of the words the humans use to describe a female," Ironhide elaborated. "There's also chick, broad, wench, lady, woman, skirt, -"

"Ironhide," Optimus rumbled, interrupting him, "Stop confusing him. He only needs to know about our femmes. He's not interested in the human females."

"Neh. Maybe he should be," Ironhide gave Bumblebee a critical look, "He's not too tall for them..."

"HIDE!"

"Alright, alright... touchy." Ironhide grumped.

The look of long suffering patience Bumblebee directed at Optimus over Ironhide's head made Prime smile. Yes, he did love his Bee. The Commander lowered himself down to sit in a stiff, legs stretched out straight pose next to Ironhide sprawled on the ground. Bumblebee settled down gracefully on the ground in front of the older bots, expectant. The sun filtering through the trees glinted off his polished yellow armor, making him look rather ethereal.

Optimus frowned, looking down at his clasped hands. He didn't know where to start! "So, ah..."

The two bots waited.

"So?" Ironhide repeated, quirking an optic ridge.

"Uh... " Optimus was struggling for suitable words.

"Oh for pits sake, let me handle this. Bumblebee, do you know what to do with a femme IF you get your hands on one?" Ironhide stated evenly.

Bee nodded. He had scanned the spark merging methods from the datafiles. It was easy. Open the chests of the participants, get them in close proximity... and then came the overload. But that was the very LAST stage of being with a femme. He didn't know anything else.

"Good. Now lets get you one. Have any one in mind?" Ironhide asked.

Optimus twitched. He felt like a fool, not knowing what to say. Bumblebee looked like he was concentrating hard. So cute.

"A pink one?" the scout said hopefully with his scratchy voice module.

"Pink. Okay, I did mean a particular femme, not a color, but we can work with that."

"Most femmes do seem to be pink or red, Hide, he's making a logical choice." Optimus said encouragingly.

"Except for purple Decepticon femmes, which we will be staying right away from. Nasty types, those purple ones, fond of violence," Ironhide muttered.

"You would know this from personal experience, correct?" Optimus blinked his optics at his friend with a haughty smile.

"Shuttup. At least I've got more experience than you!"

Optimus growled, "Just because I found the perfect femme for me on my first go, doesn't mean I'm somehow dysfunctional, Ironhide. Most mech's never find their right partner. Look how many femmes you went through before settling on Chromia!"

"I did not 'go through' femmes, enjoying female company does not mean I am a deviant," Ironhide shot back.

"Neither does NOT having a lot of past femme friends!" Optimus frowned.

"HA! You had females throwing themselves at you on a daily basis, don't say you haven't had lots of opportunity. They turned up everywhere we went until Elita set most of them straight about their 'hopeful' relationship with you."

"Oh Primus, yes. I don't even want to think of that awful green one, remember her? What was her name.." Optimus looked thoughtful, sifting through his memories.

"Sentria. I made her scram many a time. No one could get anywhere near you without tripping over her fawning chassis. She was very easy on the optics, that femme. Quite a stunner. She was very determined to have you any way she could," Ironhide grinned.

Optimus smirked, "A few vital missing chips, as well. Crazy, but persistent."

"Yes, Elita sent her over to the other side of Cybertron, and I recall she made it onto Ultra Magnus' squad. She didn't leave him alone either! Must have been the femme type to go for the oversized Leader mechs, she wanted power. I think Springer eventually gave her the flick. Sent her off to some distant outpost. She was too much of a distraction."

"Distraction." Optimus looked askance at Ironhide, "Not all of us let femmes 'distract' us from our duties."

"Don't tell me you're immune, Leader Legend Butt! How many times was Elita in YOUR locked office?!"

"What?! Legend Butt, your aft!"

Bumblebee watched the passionate exchange, his head turning to examine the expressions of each bickering mech. It made him sad that he didn't have any experience at all to contribute to the conversation.

"Enough, enough, this isn't getting us any further with helping Bumblebee," Ironhide smiled, fluttering a hand at Optimus to stop the Commander mech from reminisencing too much. "So its pink or nothing?" he directed at the scout, picking up from the start of the interupted conversation.

Bee shrugged, "I like pink.. isn't attractiveness part of the whole relationship?"

"Yes, it is." Optimus nodded. "From the records, we have several pink femmes here at the base, including Arcee."

Ironhide looked somewhat pained, "Arcee is a touchy area, I'd stay away from her. She alternates between Hot Rod and Springer."

"Right. I don't see Arcee as a good first date either," Optimus rubbed his abused thigh where the snarky femme had kicked him, "Then why don't we take a few Earth days to see which pink femmes might be suitable candidates for Bumblebee? Scout around, do a bit of observation. You too Bee, start taking note of pink femmes you like the look of, find out their names and then we can work on the dilemma of making a date for you." Optimus instructed.

Bumblebee nodded, jumping to his feet and bouncing back and forth on his metallic toes excitedly, head ducked down as his fists punched the air. Now they were getting somewhere! Bumblebee emitted his trademark soundclip, "Lets get to it!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Birds and Bumblebees **

**Chapter 4 **

Bumblebee sat on his recharge berth in his quarters, hands held together in his lap, fingers clenching anxiously. Thinking. While his meeting with Optimus Prime and Ironhide had gone well – ending with Bee bouncing into the air ecstatically, that he was going to get a femme! – he could now feel his excitement turning into dread. Did he really want to go through with this? Femmes were exciting, yes, and scary as the pit. No, wait, IRONHIDE had a femme, a fact which still baffled most of the mech population. None of them could work out what a female would ever see in the grumpy, weapons-mad, glowering lump of insane black mech.

To Bumblebee's critical CPU, he supposed the Weapons Specialist was vaguely handsome. He was strong, brave, quick thinking (uh, mostly, 'Hide was not renowned for his smarts), awesomely fast and accurate with his cannons, and a high-ranking Autobot Executive Officer.

High ranking. Hmm. Wasn't he now himself a Second-Class Lieutenant? Nah. Bumblebee shrugged off that thought. It wasn't a high enough rank to attract swooning femmes. Executive Officers and Commanders got all the swooning, over-heated femmes, not Second Class wotsits.

Bee's optics flickered, his optic ridges lowering down with determination. But, so what? If 'Hide could get a femme to fall in love with him, than so could he! He just had to find the right one, is all. Bolstering himself up with forced courage, the yellow mech stood up, and went to exit his quarters. His door whooshed open and he started to stride out, optics focused straight ahead –

[THUMP [CRASH

"...owww!"

Bumblebee halted his steps abruptly. Had he hit something? His head swivelled left and right. He couldn't see what had run into him.

"Down here, lugnuts!"

"Oh!" Bumblebee looked down at the floor and to his left. There sat a small blue femme. A VERY small blue femme. Primus, she was tiny! "Uh, I'm, er, sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going." Hesitantly, he leaned over and offered his hand to help the female up off the floor.

The blue femme looked at his hand, her optics moving from his earnest face to his outstretched hand. A small smile graced her faceplates and she accepted his hand with grace, only giving forth a small yelp when Bumblebee over estimated his own strength with the small bot and yanked the femme up way too fast. The female gasped and stuck a hand out onto his armor plated lower chest to keep her balance and prevent from being slammed into him.

"Sorry..." Bumblebee again apologised, inclining his head downwards as his optics looked at her. She didn't appear much bigger now she was upright! How could a femme be so small?

The femme straightened herself up, brushing dust from her rear and sides. "No problem, most mech's don't take much notice of me, I'm too short, always getting trodden on and knocked over. I'm way below the optic level of most Bots, I suppose." She smiled gently up at him.

Bumblebee's optics flickered. He barely registered what she was saying. She was so cute! And she was talking to him! Better say something back. "Are you sure you're alright?" he asked, concerned. His voice capacitor was scratchy, but working. Not the deep confident voice of a proud, handsome Commander mech, but what the heck, it was better than confusing the femme with his radio tunes!

"I'm fine," she shrugged, the high gloss of her polished metal sending sparkles of light into his optics. She looked closer at him. He looked like one of the Army mech's. Bulky yellow armor covered his chest and extremities and she noticed the bulge of a thick cannon behind his right forearm. "Are you a soldier?" she asked.

Bumblebee nodded, thinking carefully about what words to say, "Yes, I'm a Scout and Guardian, I find things, watch things..." he mentally stabbed himself, get it together, Bee! "A Lieutenant. Second Class."

"Really?" The femme's optics looked over him again appraisingly. He wasn't half bad to look at, this one, and he wasn't as tall or as intimidating as the other soldiers she'd met. "That sounds interesting. I'm just an Administrator, I don't fight or anything, never felt brave enough for that," she said softly.

"Courage comes in different forms, it's not just throwing yourself in front of a Decepticon's gun."

"Oh yes, I agree with that," she laughed quietly, a soft tinkling noise that fluttered past Bumblebee's starstruck audios.

Bee found himself suddenly coming out with words he wasn't sure he should be saying. "Would you like to... have a drink with me sometime?" he asked. Her oval shaped light blue optics in her small face stared up at him with interest. "Just a drink, maybe we could talk, if you wanted to, with me," he added. How on Cybertron had he come out with that?! Brave, Bumblebee, brave! She would most likely going to tell him to go rot in the pit with Megatron's trashed aft now.

Her face brightened and Bumblebee felt his spark do a hopeful flip-flop in its chamber. "I'd like that, and I've even got some time right now, if you'd like. But you know what?"

"W-What?" Bumblebee's voice was getting shaky, his artificial 'braveness' wearing off.

"You haven't asked me my name." She looked slightly affronted.

"Primus! Opps! Um, may I ask your name? Would you mind? Sorry, should've thought, you must think I'm a giant lughead..." he shifted around on his feet, embarrassed. Gathering battlefield courage, he lifted his head from staring at the floor. "I'm Bumblebee. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," the femme smiled graciously, "My name is Marin. Yes, nothing spectacular like Elita One or Firestar, very plain, I know. It's the name I came online with."

"It's a nice name." He tilted his head to the side, looking down at her. "Sounds soft and pretty."

Marin looked up at him. He seemed so _nice_. He gave off an aura of gentle power and kindness. Normally she stayed away from the military types. Too rough and loud, and BIG. At times she hated her size. Hard enough being a femme without being nearly three quarters the size of a regular femme – and even the taller femmes didn't come close to the height of a normal towering mech! She would've been very lucky to reach Optimus Prime's hip compartments on metal tiptoes, for Primus' sake.

"How about that drink?" she asked shyly.

"Yes, of course," Bumblebee nodded happily. He started walking down the hallway, Marin following at his side companionably, her steps rushing to keep up with his even though he was walking reasonably slowly.

"Hey, Bumblebee?"

"Yes?" He looked down at her, taking note of her quick steps and slowing down further to accommodate her.

"I'm sorry for calling you a lugnut, it just sort of burst out, you know?" Marin looked sheepish, her optics ducking away from looking straight at him.

"You needn't be sorry, I deserved it."

"THAT will be debated over the drink YOU are buying ME."

"Okay!" Bumblebee almost trilled like a robobird, he was so happy. To think, only moments ago he had been hanging around moping in his quarters. All he'd had to do was open his door and he fell over such a lovely nice femme! What was Optimus going to say?!

Ratchet was frowning, on his way down the corridor to confront the Autobot Leader over missed service appointments (when wasn't he frowning? When welding the Twins back together on his medbay table without sufficient pain killers) thinking over his hectic servicing schedule for all the 'Bots at the base. He simply HAD to get Optimus in for his routine maintenance. Maybe Ironhide would help, he had last time, holding a whirring cannon to the Commander's head and pushing him along with subtle shoves and evil cackles.

"Hi Ratch!" Bumblebee called out happily, passing the medic in the hallway.

"Hi," Ratchet mumbled automatically, only looking up at the last moment. He froze in his tracks, wobbling on both thick feet. Bumblebee?! With a... with a... _femme_?! He turned and watched with blatant optics as the yellow scout escorted a tiny blue female down the hallway and into the rec room. Holy Primus!! He fairly sprinted up the corridor, slamming aside Optimus Prime's office door with one large fist, "He's got one! He's got one!" he shrieked. "Oh. Frag."

No one was in the office. Well, that was okay, he'd just find him using the comlink...

"BUMBLEBEE'S GOT A FEMME!!!"

Ratchet's ecstatic voice burst out full-strength on an open line from Optimus Prime's comlink, clearly audible and echoing all around the large conference room. The medic had over-ridden Optimus' internal settings to make the message come through loud and clear, on speaker. Clever medic. Way too clever medic.

"SHE'S CUTE! SHE'S BLUE! AND HE'S BUYING HER A DRINK!" Ratchet continued babbling full strength out of Prime's still-open comlink channel.

The other assorted Autobot's and humans in the room looked at the large red and blue male at the head of the table with amused and shocked expressions.

Prowl, lifting his head from the documents on the table, was staring straight at Optimus with the biggest smirk on his faceplates that Optimus had ever seen on his new Second-In-Command. That wasn't right, Prime thought, Prowl never smirked. Prowl rarely even smiled. It just wasn't... normal.

Ex-Secretary of Defense, John Keller, coughed politely, his eyebrows moving upwards as he looked pointedly at the Autobot Leader. Keller had retired from his official Government post and was now acting as a semi-official Government liaison to the Autobots. He got along well with the huge Autobot, Optimus Prime. They were on the same wavelength on many issues.

Optimus sighed, shaking his head. "Yes, thank you Ratchet, the human Heads of State desperately needed to know that information."

A chorus of chuckles and laughter rang around the room. Prowl's obnoxious smirk changed to a faint smile. Their little Bumblebee was on his way to being a fully fledged mech.

"Oh. Apologies. My bad, and since I've gone this far, GET YOURSELF TO YOUR NEXT SERVICE APPOINTMENT, SLAGGER! OR I'M GETTING IRONHIDE!" Satisfied, Ratchet finished off his message, allowing the comlink to cut off with a squeal.

More human laughter. Prowl was starting to show that awful smirk again.

Optimus put his head in both hands on the table, sighing, shoulders sagging, "Yes, thank you, Ratchet."


	5. Chapter 5

**Birds and Bumblebees **

**Chapter 5 **

While Optimus Prime had restrained himself in the conference room upon hearing Ratchet's ecstatic comlink message, he was now free to express his happiness.

"Who is she? Why is she blue, didn't Bumblebee want a pink femme? This is just great! Ironhide, stop snickering! Ratchet, what is her name, did you find out? How did he find a femme so quickly?!" Optimus was as close to babbling as he would ever come. He would have been jogging on the spot in excitement but since that was not proper Optimus Prime-type-behaviour, he kept himself in check. This was just fantastic, their youngling had a female at last!

The three mech's were crowded into Prime's office, discussing the biggest thing to happen to Bumblebee for eons (yes, apart from fighting Megatron, helping to save Cybertron, getting his voice modulator ripped out, and landing on Earth – those things were inconsequential compared to meeting femmes).

"Prime, calm down, he's only having a drink with her. I wouldn't even call it a date, really." Ironhide scratched at his neck nonchalantly, the internals of his right cannon squeaking from his movements. Sure, Bee was talking one-on-one with a femme, but it wasn't anywhere close to spark bonding yet. Optimus was just too excited. This thing could all blow up in Bumblebee's face. Femmes were unpredictable. They took offence at the slightest thing and left your aft in the dirt while you were wondering what had happened.

"Says the mech who has a femme talking, drinking, and then flat on her back on his recharge berth in under a cycle, and declaring eternal love." Ratchet expressed, glaring at the black mech.

"And your point is?" Ironhide pronounced succinctly, waving one hand in a beckoning motion.

"My point? If Bumblebee copies you from your past behaviour, we should see him appear with this femme any second now, ushering her quickly into his quarters. Followed by rapturous screams of spark overload from both of them."

"RATCHET! Primus!" Optimus winced, "Do you have to be so blatant?" He couldn't picture (and didn't WANT to picture) their precious Bumblebee opening his chest and getting personal with a femme for the first time in his life. That was something very private. He would be overjoyed to know Bumblebee had finally achieved it, but he didn't want to know the details.

"Yeah, did you? You've got a loud mouth, Ratchet." Ironhide's optics darkened menacingly at the medic, clunking one cannon online with a whirr.

Ratchet gave him the most bored and unaffected sideways look he could muster. Ironhide's cannons didn't scare him. The Weapons Specialist gave in, powering down the cannon and muttering consolingly to himself. Ratchet smiled, "Now I think we should attempt to ask one of the femmes we know, about this femme we DON'T know, yes?"

"Good idea," Optimus said firmly, coming around from standing behind his desk and moving out the door. "And I know just who to ask... follow me."

Ironhide chased after him, Ratchet following in his wake, "Elita?" Ironhide prompted Optimus, catching up.

"Uh, no, she gossips too much, I think Arcee would be better, she knows how to keep quiet. According to the shift schedule she should be in the Command Centre right now, too."

The pink femme was indeed very agreeable to talk to them, although surprised at being ambushed by three of the most important mech's in the base, all eager to check out the credentials of Bumblebee's new femme friend.

"Her name is Marin, but there isn't much I can tell you, she's not a soldier. She keeps to herself, that one. Very shy. Quiet," Arcee shrugged, smiling gently at the three big mech's surrounding her in a circle. "Sorry. I can try to find out more-"

"No! No, no - don't." Optimus held his hands up, "I want to keep this quiet, don't go doing anything just yet."

"Doing about what? What's wrong with Marin?" came a bright, all-too-interested deep voice from behind them.

The mech's all froze. Ironhide growled. Ratchet directed a disgusted dirty look at the intruding speaker. Optimus just sighed, putting one hand to his forehead – he'd checked the room when they'd arrived, Sunstreaker hadn't been in there before. The gig was up already.

Sunstreaker grinned broadly, his handsome face looking like the Devil himself, "The news is already out, guys. Bee's been trying to pick up Marin. So sweet, don't you think?" Sunny gave Ironhide a friendly smack on the shoulder. Hide hissed and swiped at him with one large black hand. The Lamborghini ducked, yelping, stepping backwards. "Yikes!"

"Sunstreaker..." Optimus rumbled, putting his hands on his hips.

"What? This is so cool, Bumblebee's needed a femme friend for a long time!" Sunstreaker responded indignantly. "I think it's nice."

The glares on the elder mech's didn't change one bit.

"Alright, alright, I'll stay out of it," Sunstreaker's shoulders sagged, "I'll have you know I'm just as proud of him as you are. And I won't interfere." The Lamborghini turned to walk away, then stopped, grinning over his wide shoulder, "unless Bumblebee asks me too, since I am, after all, the best ladies mech around. It's good to be the best! Hey Ironhide, are you feeling alright? Look like you've swallowed bad energon... oh crap!" He started running.

"SLAGGER! Ladies mech, my aft - as if!" Ironhide roared after him, looking for something to throw to soothe his affronted ego. Sunstreaker was NOT the only ladies mech in THIS base! About time the fragging youngling was reminded of that!

Arcee sniggered quietly into one hand, watching Sunstreaker's smooth aft disappear out the double doors.

"Optimus," Prowl turned around in his seat near the middle podium of the three level Command Centre, "I've just received word that Bumblebee has left the rec room and proceeded back to his..."

Optimus took off with long sweeping strides, clearing the doorway and disappearing from view.

"...quarters." Prowl finished his sentence and raised one optic ridge in amusement. He looked at Ratchet and Ironhide, "Runs fast when he wants to, does he not?"

Too late. The other two senior mech's had vanished as well, the sounds of their heavy thumping footsteps audible in the distance, as well as their combined cursing at trying to keep up with the athletic Optimus Prime. "Oh. Everyone is in a hurry today," Prowl murmured, keeping a straight face. His optics twinkling ever so faintly gave away his feelings.

"Bumblebee? Bee? Can we come in?" Optimus had changed levels and reached the residential area, coming up to the door of Bumblebee's quarters and knocking insistently with one clenched fist.

Ratchet came trotting easily after him, looking perky, while a slower Ironhide was staggering along behind, air wheezing from his intakes and various warning messages flashing on his internal monitoring system. The medic halted next to Optimus, giving poor Ironhide a withering stare, "I warned you to stretch out your mechanics more often, 'Hide, you don't flex your system regularly enough to sustain sudden bouts of frenzied movement. And before you start yelling, using your cannons on the target range does _not _count!"

"F...F...Fu..." Ironhide stuttered, putting one hand on the wall, leaning on it dangerously, waiting for his air intakes to stop fitting and his systems to calm down.

"No swearing, in _whatever_ language." Ratchet snapped.

"Quiet! I can't hear anything over the bickering," Optimus ordered, irritated. There seemed to be no response to his knocks. Had Prowl been wrong? "Ratchet, please scan and see if Bumblebee is in there, he's not answering his comlink either."

The CMO looked hesitant at scanning Bumblebee's room without his permission. He did it anyway – and gasped. "There's two bot's in there!!" he whispered harshly.

Optimus' optics flashed and he took cautious backwards steps away from the door, "You're sure? Don't tell me he's got Marin - "

"I'm not scanning THAT deeply to tell you what gender the other bot is! Or what positions they're in!" Ratchet grumped.

Ironhide grinned manically, recovering, standing upright with a few creaks, "Could simply be two mech's sampling some high-grade." He paused dramatically. "Or not."

Further conversation was stalled by a few thumps and groans coming from the other side of Bumblebee's door. The mech's all went deathly quiet. Prime gathered some courage, reaching out to tap gently on the door. "Bumblebee? Are you okay?" he asked, leaning in to the closed door. "It's Optimus."

Another crash and whining moan. Followed by a nasty shriek.

"Dear Primus... they can't be.." Ratchet murmured, optic ridges raised high. Someone sounded like they were in pain. They must be doing it wrong! Spark merging wasn't supposed to hurt! What on Cybertron was going on?

After a particularly high squeal and a shockingly resounding boom, a stressed-out looking Optimus indicated silently to the others with a tilt of his head and pointed fingers, that he was going to open the door using his override code. Ratchet started shaking his head and fluttering his hands in desperate 'NO' signals – if Bee had Marin in there they shouldn't be flinging open the door! That would be disaster!

Ironhide was giving the thumbs up to Prime in silent support and aiming to smack Ratchet in the head for his dissent.

A final scream of horrible magnitude decided everything. With lightning fast fingers, Optimus desperately punched the code and sent the door sliding back on its tracks with a firm slam. "BUMBLEBEE?!" he shouted, looking inside.

Ratchet removed his hands from covering his optics and just HAD to look (to his eternal shame). Besides, Ironhide was laughing. What was in the room had to be damn awful. Who wouldn't want to peek?

His large frame sagged, relieved by what he saw. No over-heated femme and mech wrapped around each other behind this door.

Bumblebee was holding on to his obviously damaged left foot and rolling around on the floor in pain. Sideswipe still had hold of one end of an absolutely HUGE recharge platform and was trying to shove it to the other side of the room without the help of his injured friend. "I told you not to drop it! Now look what happened!" Sides was yelling at poor Bee whimpering on the floor.

A whistling hiccup and a pitiful whine came from the Camaro curled up on the floor.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?!" Optimus thundered, stomping his large intimidating frame fully through the door and standing over Bumblebee. He stared down worryingly at Bee whimpering over his very sore foot.

Sideswipe dropped his end of the recharge bed on the floor, all of the mech's wincing at the enormous cracking sound it made. "He's drunk, that's what! Drank too much trying to impress Marin, then he called in a special favour from me to get a bigger recharge bed, he says a single width platform isn't big enough any more. I was trying to help him move it," Sideswipe looked pitifully down at Bumblebee, who was now lying flat on the floor and holding onto one of Prime's hands in comfort when the Commander crouched down to inspect his foot, "but he can't stay upright and keeps dropping his end on his own foot."

"Oh dear god..." Ratchet winced, kneeling down to examine Bumblebee's mangled extremity.

Bumblebee looked up at the medic leaning over him and giggled, "R-R-R-Ratchet!"

"Yes, that would be me," Ratchet frowned, poking experimentally at the crushed parts of Bumblebee's foot. Bee squealed in pain, gasping, smacking the medic with one flailing hand. Ratchet dimmed his optics and shook his head, not pleased, "He's managed to drop the sharp edge of the thing right between the gap in his armor plating, its crushed the main hydraulic resevoir and power relays leading from his ankle. Painful."

"Oooo, ow, ow, nasty," Sideswipe winced. "No wonder he keeps screaming."

Ironhide came to stand next to Ratchet, looking down at the whimpering scout batting ineffectually at Ratchet's probing hands, "He'll scream more when the high-grade wears off," Ironhide said, shaking his head, "Shouldn't have drunk so much, runt. Femmes really aren't impressed by that."

"He was nervous, Ironhide, it wouldn't have taken much high-grade to send him off balance, he isn't used to it," Optimus spoke, and kneeled more comfortably on the floor next to Bumblebee, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder and patting it. "You shouldn't have tried to do too much too fast, Bee," he said gently, optics gazing down with understanding at the stricken soldier.

Bumblebee nodded, embarrassed, then his optics brightened, "She likes me!" he announced unsteadily to all of them. "I got one, see?" His head wobbled when he lifted it from the floor. "Ugh. I'm tired. Did too much... today..." His head dropped and his recharge programs began running without his consent. Bee passed out on the floor, his optics going dark, limbs going limp. Ratchet poked him. No response.

"I've never seen Bumblebee over-energised before," Sideswipe said quietly into the sudden silence.

"A day to remember. His first date and his first hangover," Ironhide grinned.

"You don't get one without the other," the red Lamborghini said smugly, all-knowing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Birds and Bumblebees**

**Chapter 6 **

Marin hesitated outside the base medbay. She was nervous of facing the CMO, the legendary Ratchet – the doctor who threw things, got angry, yelled a lot and refused to use painkillers unless the situation was dire. She'd heard he was taking personal care of Bumblebee after his 'accident', and she would have to negotiate her way around him to visit Bee. Poor Bumblebee. Sideswipe; the big red warrior who transformed into a Lamborghini; had so kindly informed her of what had happened yesterday. Bumblebee had apparently been trying to move some furniture in his quarters and he had dropped his recharge bed onto his foot through a gap in his armor, smashing the internals of his foot.

Ouch, Marin winced, thinking about it, approaching the medbay entrance. Why had Bumblebee dropped it in the first place? Maybe he wasn't as strong as she'd thought he was. Nevermind. He was cute and he was nice, and she was interested in starting a relationship with him. Bumblebee himself seemed very eager, as well.

The door opened as she slowly stepped forwards into the medbay. Her optics darted back and forth. She didn't know where to go. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand to one of the passing medtech personnel, getting his attention. "Please, could you tell me where Lieutenant Bumblebee is? I'm here to see him," she asked softly.

"Certainly, he's with the boss in Ward 1, just down the hall," the tech indicated with a pointed finger along the hallway.

"Thank you," she murmured, walking with slow steps in the right direction. Oh Primus, he's with the 'Boss'? That had to be Ratchet. She wanted to turn around and race away. No. No, no, no. She was here to see if Bumblebee was recovering okay, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. If Ratchet threw ANYTHING at her or Bumblebee, she'd damn well get the courage to throw it back and get him reported for such disgusting behaviour.

"SLAG IT, sit still, youngling!"

"I am sitting still! You keep shoving my leg to the side! You're pushing too hard!"

::SMACK:: "Don't you answer back to me!"

Marin froze. Oh God. Ratchet. It had to be. He'd started yelling already. She didn't want to go in. She did NOT want to go in...!!

"Owww!"

She'd swear that was Bumblebee's scratchy voice module. He sounded like he was in pain. Marin winced, hating herself. Her small hands clenched at her sides.

"OW! Owwww!"

More exclamations of pain from Bumblebee.

Optics narrowing, gathering her anger around her like a shield, Marin shoved open the Ward door, walking in. Her determined gaze fell upon the scene of the yellow mech, Bumblebee, lying back on an enormous medical table, his upper body propped up on his elbows. A larger greenish mech; probably Ratchet; was scowling and poking at Bumblebee's mangled foot.

Both mech's looked up at her entrance.

"Hi... I'm here to see Lieutenant Bumblebee?" Her voice came out almost like a whisper. She mentally kicked herself, she'd wanted to sound so much more fearsome and confident!

Ratchet straightened up from his bent over stance and let his optics run up and down the intruding femme. He recognised her as the female he'd seen Bumblebee walking down the hallway with. This was Marin! She was tiny! Light blue in color, unarmored body, oval-shaped optics that looked too large for her face. She wasn't beautiful, perhaps she COULD be called casually pretty, and her small size lent her some degree of cuteness.

"You must be Marin," Ratchet said grumpily, staring at her.

"Hi Marin!" Bumblebee perked up, ignoring the pain in his foot and trying to sit up fully. Without looking at him, Ratchet put one casual hand on his shoulder and shoved. Bee went back down with a groan.

The femme opened her mouth to answer, and was interrupted by the mammoth-sized crash of the doors behind her being smashed open and an angry looking flame-patterned Autobot Commander, Optimus Prime, being shoved forcefully through the doorframe by an equally huge and scary looking black mech.

"Ironhide, enough! Stop it!" Optimus was resisting being pushed along, using his massive thighs to brace himself.

"Ratchet's orders over-ride yours. Sit on the pit-slaggin' bench and get serviced, for Primus sake!" The big black mech grabbed Prime by the arm and literally forced him down with a yank to sit onto the bench next to Ratchet and Bumblebee.

Prime immediately went to stand up again but was faced by one of Ironhide's oversized cannon's being shoved in his faceplate. Prime sank down onto the table again, flashing his optics in mock anger at the black mech standing over him. _Not too much aggression, Ironhide,_ _we just wanted to get in here with a legitimate excuse, _Optimus sent over his internal comlink to his Weapons Specialist. He let the palms of his hands grip the med table, causing it to creak under the pressure.

Ironhide couldn't keep the grin off his faceplates, flexing the muscle cables of his forearms so his cannons rumbled. _I'm enjoying this far too much_, _slagger_, he sent back.

_Yes, but don't scare the femme senseless, she's not a soldier, Ironhide_, Optimus responded.

Ironhide slid a curious glance over at the femme standing next to Bumblebee. She looked very intimidated. She'd drawn her petite hands up against her chest, taking a step backwards, her face showing her confusion and apprehension. Grunting, he lowered his whirring cannon. "Hello," he practically leered at the small female. "I'm Ironhide, Executive Officer, Weapons Specialist and official kicker of Optimus Prime's aft when he misses medical appointments."

"Oh. You are? A-A-Alright..." Marin's optics darted nervously around, looking at the combined mass of menacing looking mech's crowding the room. She'd never met Optimus Prime before! He was huge! She wasn't up to this. Why had she made herself come here?! That black mech – Ironhide? – was absolutely loaded with weaponry. She hadn't known cannon's came that gigantic!

_That's it, I'm telling Chromia you leered at Marin! Can't you behave at all?!_ Optimus shot at Ironhide over the comlink.

_Shut up! I'm trying to be friendly here!_ Ironhide sent.

_Friendly or lecherous?_ Optimus casually let his foot swing out, catching Ironhide in the thigh sharply. Ironhide yelped, and stumbled backwards. "Opps, apologies, my bad, must be a glitch in there," Optimus said innocently, blinking his optics and lifting his large foot experimentally.

"Glitch, my aft!" Ironhide spoke out loud, lifting one over-sized hand to smack his Commander.

A flying wrench hit him precisely in the arm. "OWW! Hey!" Hide looked around wildly. Who threw that?! Ratchet pointed an arm at a very angry looking Bumblebee. The yellow scout was trying to get off the table, reaching out with clenching fingers at his Commander and Guardian, putting his one good foot to the ground and hopping on it. He knew what was happening, Optimus and Ironhide wanted to spy on him and Marin! Enough of that, they were scaring her with their stupid antics!

Ratchet smacked him back onto the table, "Don't move," he ordered harshly, before reaching out and grabbing one hand each onto Optimus and Ironhide, literally dragging the offending mech's out of his medbay, "You two dimwits, stay out of my medbay until further notice! OUT!" The medic shoved the protesting mech's out the door, not disturbed in the least by Optimus' voice weakly stating that he DID have an appointment.

With the two jokers gone, Ratchet turned around, grunting. Marin had edged closer to Bumblebee, one of her hands resting on the table he was lying on. Her optics stared at him worryingly. Slag it, he'd have to fix this. Time to turn on the old medical school charm, Ratchet thought. He let an easy smile grace his faceplates. "I'm sorry about those two, they cause more trouble than they're worth," he said gently. "Now, you came here to see, 'Lieutenant' Bumblebee, correct?"

Marin nodded, "I heard he'd hurt himself, I wanted to check... to check he was okay." Her voice sounded as small as she was.

"Well," Ratchet walked back to the table, "he's going to be fine, I just need to replace one last item in his foot, then he'll be done. Would you like to stay and wait for him? I won't be long," he looked kindly at her, hoping his face wouldn't crack.

"If Bumblebee doesn't mind," she looked at the yellow mech, hoping it was okay.

"I'd like you to stay, Marin," Bumblebee said, his optic ridges rising up hopefully. He carefully slid his hand under hers where it lay on the table. Her fingers hesitated for a moment, before grasping onto his own. His hand dwarfed hers, but it felt good. Her optics looked tenderly at him, a slow smile appearing on her face.

"I'll stay with you," she murmured.

Ratchet resisted groaning and rolling his optics. Young love. Bumblebee wasn't dying, for Primus sake! He was just getting his foot repaired.

The medic went ahead with his repairs, even surreptitiously slipping Bumblebee a mild painkiller (for his hangover as well as his foot!). It wouldn't do Bee any good to be yelping like a sparkling in front of Marin.

For her part, Marin was glad of the opportunity to observe Bumblebee on the table. The mech was watching Ratchet's hands on his foot worriedly, so he wouldn't notice if she stared at his body. Bumblebee had a very nice physique. His shoulders were broad and covered with wide thick armor, as was most of his body. Topped by a twin pair of double headlights, his chest armor curved enticingly down his torso to a narrow waist and she wondered what type of vehicle he transformed into. To Marin's approving optics, he had long agile legs, elegant strong hands and such sweet optics it made her spark flicker happily in its casing.

She looked down at his hand hanging onto hers and smiled. Yes, she was falling fast.

"Marin?"

Startled out of her musing, she looked up. Ratchet was looking at her expectantly.

"All finished. Bumblebee is free to go now," Ratchet stated, retracting some of his tools back into his forearm with a smooth transformation. He looked back at his patient. "How does it feel, Bee?"

Bumblebee flexed his foot experimentally, and started to tell Ratchet it felt good, but instead of recognisable sound emitting from his vocaliser, a harsh squeak followed by a cough came forth. Bee put a hand to his throat, alarmed. Oh no. Not now. No!

Marin leaned closer to him, putting a hand on his arm in concern, her small frame pressing into his side, "Are you okay?"

Bumblebee strained to make any noise at all. Nothing came out but a few troubling coughs.

Ratchet groaned, putting his hands to his face, "Oh no, it's gone _again_. Primus. This is never-ending." The medic leaned his hands on the table, watching poor Bumblebee struggle to get sound out. Nothing was happening. "Stop straining Bee, you'll end up convulsing and causing more damage to yourself."

"What's happening?" Marin asked uncertainly, looking back and forth from Bumblebee to Ratchet.

Ratchet frowned, contemplating. "He has trouble with his voice modulator. Megatron ripped it out and I replaced it," he explained bluntly.

"Megatron?! THE Megatron?" Marin gasped, looking horrified. She hadn't known about this! Her frame went cold with terror. "When was this?!"

Ratchet straightened up, glancing at Marin. Bumblebee should be telling her this himself. Oh wait, he couldn't speak. Opps. Better give a short, non-specific explanation. "Back home, during battle, a while ago. Look, don't fret, we'll just fix him up again and then he has to rest his voice for a while. Perhaps you can help him with communicating, if you would be so kind...?"

"I'd love to, it's no problem. Oh Bumblebee, this is awful, you poor thing," she reached out across his chest and encompassed him in a gentle hug, as far as her short arms would reach.

Bumblebee thought his optics would short out, he was so happy – a femme was hugging him! MARIN was hugging him! He didn't care his voice had shorted out again, he had a femme!

On the other side of the medbay doors, Optimus and Ironhide were sneaking glances through the plexiglass set into the top part of the door. "They're hugging! She's hugging him! Look at that!" Ironhide whispered with glee, pushing jovially at Optimus Prime's shoulder where the Autobot Leader was bending over next to him.

"She is indeed, good for you Bumblebee," Optimus replied, sighing with contentment. "I think this is going to work out for him, don't you agree?"

"Oh yeah," Ironhide drawled, nodding.

Despite Optimus believing he'd ducked down enough to not be seen, Ratchet saw the tips of his distinctive helmet antennae through the plexiglass in the door. He growled. The slaggers were still hanging around! He'd fix this.

Slowly, stooping down so he couldn't be noticed, Ratchet crept over to the ward double doors on flexed leg joints. Marin and Bumblebee watched him, confused. What was the mad medic doing now?

Abruptly, Ratchet grabbed the handles to the doors and tore them open, revealing the huge mass of Optimus Prime and the cannon-toting form of Ironhide crouching down and conversing in whispers on the other side.

"What the pit are you two doing?! Spying on my patients!" Ratchet yelled, taking a swipe at Optimus Prime's head with one enraged hand. "Leader or not, I'm gonna re-arrange your stupid aft! How dare you!"

"Time to leave, Ironhide!" Optimus ducked under Ratchet's hands with amazing agility and took off, immensely long legs striding out fast. Ironhide tried vainly to keep up with him, both of them swerving around stunned technicians and heading rapidly for the medbay exit with huge thumping steps.

"COME BACK HERE! I'll give you the exhaust flush from hell, fraggers!" Ratchet was screaming after them, trying to catch up. He was furious.

Marin watched the crazed mech's run away, then turned back to Bumblebee, arching one optic ridge questioningly, "Are you friends with those two? Optimus, and er, the black scary one?" she asked softly.

Bumblebee lowered his head, embarrassed, and then nodded slightly.

"Oh." Marin looked sad, then smiled consolingly. "You poor mech. Don't worry, I'll stay with you. I'll be more help than they are."

Bumblebee's optics flared with happiness, and then he and Marin both winced when a stunningly undignified scream echoed around the medbay.

"It sounds like Ratchet got one of them, at least," Marin said shyly, patting his hand.


	7. Chapter 7

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: I'm so sorry this chapter is late. It should have been written months ago but I've been very short on ideas and inspiration!

Credit to Karategal and Lady Tecuma for the use of the 'sparkling/youngling' concept. And no, Bumblebee isn't having a sparkling... not in this chapter, anyway!

**Chapter 7**

"_Bumblebee, where are you?" _

The yellow mech paused before answering his comlink, not taking his optics off the view over the surrounding hills. "At the Lookout. Watching the sunset. What did you need, Ironhide?"

"_Ah... nothing." _

One of Bumblebee's optic ridges rose up in amusement. "Nothing?"

There was a loaded pause at Ironhide's end._ "Er... Would you mind if Optimus and I passed by the Lookout to see you?"_

Bumblebee looked down at his femme, Marin, sitting between his knees with her back comfortably leaning against him. Her hands were clasped in her lap. She tilted her head back to look at him upside down, "Optimus Prime?" she whispered, looking bemused.

Bee nodded. He had his comlink on speaker, but quickly muted it while he asked her if it was okay. Marin smiled, shrugging. She had to formally meet him some time. Now was good.

"Sure, no problem, 'Hide. Come on over."

There was a faint Ironhide-type grunt before the link closed. Bumblebee adjusted his doorwings, settling himself back more comfortably against the thick base of the tall tree he was leaning back on.

"You sure you're okay with this? I know Ironhide, er, troubles you," he asked carefully. Marin had been scared by Ironhide's intimidating dumb-aft antics in the medbay. She had pointedly stayed away from him at the base, which wasn't hard since she was a civilian in the administration department and Ironhide was the military Weapons Specialist to Optimus Prime.

Marin smiled. "Yes. You're here. If that black mech tries anything you'll set him straight, right?"

"Yup." Bumblebee's optics sparkled. Ironhide would find himself learning to fly head first into the canyon below if he upset his femme. Optimus would probably demote him back to the rank of cadet, though (after laughing at Ironhide's aft flying through the air).

"And Optimus Prime seemed nice, if a bit silly," Marin continued, thinking back to how the huge Commander had been crouching behind the medbay doors, pretending he was 'out of sight' when bits of him were poking out for everyone to see he was there.

Marin shivered pleasantly when Bumblebee put his hands gently on her shoulders in reassurance, "Optimus is the nicest mech you'll ever meet anywhere in the universe. You'll love him."

"Really?" she sat up, turning her head around to look at him, smirking, "Is he available then?"

Poor Bumblebee's spark almost died in his chest, thinking she wanted to trade him in. "No! Primus no!"

Marin sighed dramatically, "Didn't think so." She giggled. "Made you scared. Don't worry, I'm yours."

Bumblebee put a hand to his forehead, groaning, "Evil female."

The petite Autobot femme settled herself back against him. "Yes, but I'm YOUR evil female. And don't get upset-"

Bumblebee snorted.

"-we're here to celebrate you getting your voice module working again." She reached a hand out to pat his knee at her side. "Such a nice voice too."

He looked down at her with soft adoring optics. He and Marin had been dating for two Earth months now. He still couldn't believe his luck that she wanted to be with him. She was so _nice_, considerate, pretty; if not beautiful in his optics; gentle, funny; and she wasn't at all worried that she was his first femme. Bumblebee was learning to relax around her and not be so anxious.

They hadn't really been 'together' yet. The whole interfacing thing could wait. Marin wasn't rushing him along, and he would never lay a hand on her in an intimate way unless she implicitly invited him to do so. Besides, at this stage both of them were very happy with soft stroking, loving pats and just being with each other. He was her mech, and she was his femme. That was the best bit. So far.

Bumblebee was getting used to using his upright rude finger on Ironhide when the mech asked if he'd done 'it' yet. What was the rush? It would happen. Eventually.

The familiar clanking and revving of a big rig truck signalled the arrival of Optimus Prime. Ironhide's GMC Topkick truck following along behind. He swerved around Optimus when the Leader braked to a stop and pulled up right next to Bumblebee.

Bee didn't flinch, but his hands on Marin's shoulders tightened. Marin sank down further between the protection of his bent up legs. She watched with wary optics peeking over Bumblebee's leg as the black truck transformed, Ironhide standing up on thick strong legs and looking like an impenetrable terrifying fortress.

The cannon's on Ironhide's arms whirred and hissed, "Where's Marin?", he asked, looking around.

Optimus Prime smiled as the femme slowly poked her head up from the protection of Bumblebee's legs, announcing "Here."

Ironhide attempted to smile as nicely as he could, but it still came out as a more traditional Ironhide-leer. Primus, it was so much easier talking to femmes like his Chromia, or Arcee, who didn't mind rough-housing and weapons talk. "Hello. What are you doing hiding in there?"

Marin ducked down a bit. "Waiting for you...?"

Optimus cocked his head to the side, listening. Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it. Primus, every time he saw her (which wasn't often) he was struck by how small she was. Her optics were still glued to watching what Ironhide was going to do. Bumblebee made good cover.

"Hello Marin," Optimus said, nodding and smiling at the femme. He walked towards her, sending a quick comlink transmission of 'Be nice!' to a musing Ironhide.

With a few badly suppressed groans and the straining of overused hydraulics, the Autobot Commander lowered himself to sit next to Bumblebee and Marin. He sat with his legs bent up, hands cupped loosely between them, Ironhide receiving a 'sit down and shut up' glare. The mech sat down where he was with a grunt. Marin winced at the ground shaking underneath her from several tons of oversized mech dumping down onto it.

Optimus sighed, forcing himself to relax, "Lovely view, don't you think? And a pink sunset does mean tomorrow will be nice weather too, I do believe the humans say."

Marin kept staring at the two new mech's. Her optics blinked in the failing sunlight. Bumblebee was giving Ironhide a warning look.

"I'm sorry, I don't think we're been properly introduced," Optimus began kindly, "I am Optimus Prime. And you are...?"

"Marin." She blinked again. "Nice to meet you, sir."

Prime chuckled, "Please, don't start with the 'sir' thing. You are not military, correct?"

"... I'm admin. Administration."

"Ah. Very good. Keep the bureaucrats in line."

Marin smiled softly, "I try to." Her optics again went back to staring cautiously at Ironhide sitting on the ground. Bumblebee put one careful arm around her waist.

The Weapons Specialist stared back at her, arching one optic up, "Do you think I'm scary?"

"Yes." She cringed.

"I don't shoot femmes. I shoot Decepticons." His voice sounded deeply proud.

"Oh." Marin's optics went innocently wide. "That's good."

"Would you like me to shoot one for you?"

"IRONHIDE!" Optimus hissed. "For Primus' sake." Prime wanted to fling one arm out, pointing at Ironhide with the remark 'and this is our resident male idiot'. But perhaps that was obvious.

A cautious smile appeared on Marin's face, "Are you the mech that blew up that planet everyone talks about?"

Ironhide nodded, pleased, "Yeah." He nudged Optimus in the arm, "See, knew I was famous."

Optimus looked him up and down pointedly, "You're famous for a lot of things, 'Hide."

Marin giggled. Bumblebee dropped his head down to his chest with a sigh. Well, his guardians were sort of being civilised.

Ironhide stretched his legs out in front of him, "So, what do you think of our Bumblebee, Marin?"

Optimus made a show of looking to the heavens with his optics. Dear old Ironhide, straight to the point.

Marin looked up at her mech with sweet optics, "He's lovely, he's very caring and gentle." Then she smirked, "he's got a nice cannon too. It glows yellow in the dark. Does yours do that?"

Ironhide started barking with laughter. Optimus chuckled, grinning.

Bumblebee squeezed her into a hug against his chest, nuzzling the side of her head. His optics were shimmering brightly. Was this what love was?

"Femme, I've got lots of things that glow in the dark," Ironhide purred.

Bumblebee snatched up a tree branch and awkwardly threw it at Ironhide's head. The mech deflected it with one raised arm. "Missed!"

Another branch came out of nowhere and hit him in the leg, bouncing off his armor with a loud crack. "Ow!"

"Mine didn't," Marin said smugly, wiping her hands together.

Bumblebee glowed with pride and patted her gratefully.

Optimus put his face in his hands, shaking his head. And Ironhide had said he and Chromia discussed trying to create a sparkling? Who in the world would want to make a new life from Ironhide's depraved spark? Now Bumblebee, yes, he could see little Bumblebee sparklings. A blissful smile appeared on his faceplates and he lowered his hands. He did miss having a youngling running around after him, Bumblebee had been a handful to raise, but he'd always been a good little mech. He was the type of Autobot they needed to procreate.

"What are you grinning at?" Ironhide demanded.

"Never you mind," Optimus retorted. He smiled at Marin, seeing Bumblebee looking down at the femme in his arms with utter devotion and love.

Yep, Bumblebee and Marin sparklings would be so nice...


	8. Chapter 8

**Birds and Bumblebees – All Grown-up Bee!**

Authors Note: This is the 'M' rated chapter of 'Birds and Bumblebees' where Bee gets to experience his first spark joining and overload with his first femme.

Please enjoy! (Did I sound too Japanese or McDonalds there? Whoops. Oh, go read the fic! LOL)

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Australia is just about to hit midnight. Here comes 2008.

**Chapter 8**

_Optimus Prime's quarters, 10pm local time, Autobot Base, outskirts of Tranquillity_

Ratchet looked down at his energon drink thoughtfully, turning the drink around in his hands, thinking. "Do you think Bumblebee will do it before next Thursday?"

Optimus Prime took his attention away from Friday nights late evening news on the vidscreen in front of him, settling back in his seat. "There isn't a time frame for him to do 'it' in, Ratchet."

Ironhide turned his head to the side, "Yeah, why next Thursday?"

"Sam. The boy is coming for a visit, he's on holiday from his academic studies. I'm sure Bumblebee will want to celebrate certain, _events_, with his best friend." Ratchet grinned.

Knowing more about human physiology than his friends, Ratchet knew Sam would be squealing in excitement that his best buddy was no longer a 'virgin', as the humans termed it. No doubt Bumblebee would be racing into the medbay to see him after he had accomplished 'it' for a check-up, so he would probably be the first of the Autobots to know – apart from the participants themselves. Bee was very careful about his own maintenance, something Ratchet praised him for. Not many of the Autobots in his care looked after their own well-being as consistently and diligently as Bumblebee did.

"Oh. Right." Ironhide chucked his empty drink into the trash receptacle in the corner of Prime's apartment with perfect aim. "As good a time as any. And hey, I'll stop being given the finger treatment whenever I ask about it."

Ratchet perked up, "On second thought, perhaps it would be better to tell Bee to wait a while longer."

Optimus chuckled. Ironhide stuck his own finger up at the CMO. Ratchet made a swipe at it from his seat next to the black mech but Ironhide moved it out of range.

"Funny. You're funny, you know that?" Ironhide grumped.

"May I please watch the Earth news in peace? You two do have your own quarters to go to," Optimus said tiredly. Why did they always have to hang out at his place on a Friday night?

"Shut up, Ironhide," Ratchet said automatically, reaching for another drink.

Ironhide growled, "Me?! What did I say?"

Optimus sighed and turned up the sound on the vidscreen.

_Meanwhile, outside the Administration block..._

Bumblebee waited nervously for Marin to finish her shift and appear outside. He had plans for tonight. And unlike what Ratchet and the others thought, Sam coming back was, for once, not on his CPU at all. It was nearly three months now since he and Marin had started being together. A time frame which was less than a blink of an optic to the Transformers but Bumblebee thought the time was right to try being closer with his femme, Marin.

Only three Earth days ago in Bumblebee's quarters, they had unintentionally gone close to conducting an overload. What had started with a cuddle and some stroking had turned into much stronger groping with hissing air-intakes working madly and Marin perched on top of him, grasping desperately at the armor on his chest in front of his spark.

Comically, they had both stalled at the same moment, her hands going still on his chest and his freezing where they were holding on to her shoulders, both pulling back and staring at each other thinking 'Oh slag'.

A month ago they had cautiously talked about spark overloading, and agreed to inform the other when they were ready to try it. No pressure, no ifs, no buts, or expectations. And there they had been crawling all over each other! Marin knew it would Bumblebee's first time, and she felt quite proud and happy of that. Not all femmes would. Since males seriously outnumbered females, femmes could pick and chose the 'best' of the males, they didn't need to muck around with anxious, nervous, first-time mechs.

Bumblebee wasn't religious, but he thanked every deity he'd ever heard of that Marin wasn't like that.

Marin had sat back on her heels on the floor, looking up at him where he sat on the edge of his recharge berth. Bumblebee wasn't the only one trying to calm down. Her spark had gone past the pulsing stage and was fluttering in one solid tone.

"I think, we could try doing it, I think we're ready." Marin's optics looked steadily at his. "But not tonight. Right now, we're going too fast, it will be too out of control for you."

Bumblebee leaned forwards and tried to get his systems to calm down from having a complete fritz before he answered her.

"Y-yes, okay... not right now." He put a hand to his chest, feeling the rapid excited thumps of his spark resonating through his armor. This was amazing. And unsettling. Usually if a spark was reacting like that it was under extreme duress, as if he was injured or dying. This felt like that, but in a good way. Somewhat pleasurable. A yearning, desperate jumping feeling in his chest, like he needed something and couldn't have it.

Marin stood up, sliding herself to sit next to him on the berth. She smiled softly at him, her expression gentle. "I feel it too. It's all normal. Your spark is too excited."

An expression of perplexment crossed Bumblebee's faceplates. "Ironhide says overloading is the most incredible, most amazing, CPU-blowing thing a bot can do." His optic ridges alternated from being up to pointing down, showing his confusion. "He should know, he used to spend all his free time doing it with anyone who wanted to." He immediately regretted saying that. "I shouldn't have said that! Primus!"

Marin laughed, putting a hand on his forearm, "Bumblebee, you're so sweet, but please don't think about what others do. This is about what you want to do. Don't compare yourself." She smirked faintly, "I've heard about Ironhide too. Some femmes like him, some don't."

"Really? Okay."

Waiting for Marin, Bumblebee thought back on their conversation and shook his head with shining happy optics. Marin was great. He hadn't ever thought a femme would listen to him and be so understanding. They didn't have to be, did they? He thought mech/femme relationships were all about the mech's running around trying to please the femme and keep her happy so she wouldn't leave. His Marin was treating him like an equal. A proper partner.

His chest swelled, the armored plates moving outwards. His shoulders went back proudly. He would do anything and everything for her, whatever she wanted, he would do it. She was the best femme ever.

"Bee?"

He looked down abruptly at the hesitant touch on his hip. "Marin!" He grabbed her up and held her to his chest in a tight hug so her feet were dangling off the ground, pressing his face into the side of her neck.

Marin giggled, getting her hands up to his chest in his tight embrace, "Love you too."

"Sorry, shouldn't have done that," Bumblebee said sheepishly, lowering her to the ground gently. His optics went wide, "D-did you s-s-say 'love'?" he stuttered.

The blue femme nodded, smiling up at him. "I did. Lots of love." She suddenly cringed, "Do you... do you, LIKE me too?" What if he didn't? What had she been thinking? She shouldn't be saying things like that! He may not love her that much.

Bumblebee pulled her in for another hug, not caring what other Autobots were walking past. He leaned down over the top of her, holding firm, his optics dimming from emotion, "I love you too."

Marin pressed herself into his armor, grinning, relieved. "Love you back. Thanks Bumblebee."

"I love you," Bee said again, his face beaming with happiness.

She laughed, "Yes, you said that."

He finally let her go, but held onto one of her hands with his own, her undersized hand held entirely within his soft grasp. "We need to celebrate." His tone was mischievous. "I think we need to do something special tonight."

"Oh yes," she grinned up at him where his bulk towered over hers. "Are you thinking of the same celebration we almost did before?"

Bumblebee put his back to the other Autobots using the walkway, "Oh yes. Very much." He looked cheekily down at her, studying her petite lithe blue body and thinking what he was going to be practising on it.

"Let's go, come on," Marin started walking, tugging him along eagerly, "Your quarters?"

Bumblebee was beyond words. He just nodded frantically. Marin grinned back at him.

Nervousness didn't strike Bumblebee until they were inside his small quarters, the door had shut smoothly and locked automatically, leaving the pair standing awkwardly inside the room. Bee didn't know what move to make next.

"Sit with me?" Marin asked, perching herself on the edge of Bumblebee's broad recharge platform and patting it. Her optics looked up at him sweetly. He complied, sitting himself next to her, his frame stiff with anxiety.

"Do you feel okay?" The femme cocked her head to the side, watching him.

He nodded, feeling the prickly sensations in his vocaliser which gave him warning that it was thinking about not working.

One of her hands picked up his, holding it carefully. She needed both of hers to hold it. Mech hands were much more substantial and heavier than femme hands. The tip of her forefinger touched the back of his hand, gliding back and forth slowly. While Bumblebee's hand only had four fingers (three main digits and an opposable thumb, common among Transformers), Marin had five fingers.

Bee watched her slender fingers exploring his own. He was getting tingles moving up his arm. They seemed to go right up the circuits and fizzle into his waiting spark. When she turned his hand over to examine his palm, he flexed his thick fingers for her, watching the small smile that appeared on her face.

"You have nice hands..." she murmured. "Strong. Nicely proportioned."

He felt her shift her thigh over so it pressed into his own, rounded femme curves up against blunt thick mech armor. His automatic reaction was to move away, as would be the polite thing to do. He didn't move. This was his Marin, not another soldier. He _wanted_ to be pressed into her.

While she caressed his hand and arm, Bumblebee's optics were looking down with awe at her body up close. The sky blue of her paintjob contrasted sharply with his yellow color scheme. Marin was small, but she was curvy, there was hardly a straight line to be seen on her exostructure. She was all graceful curves blended into organic metal. Her outer skin was a medium sky blue, underneath her protoform showed through as grey patches, peeking out from slots in her civilian armor. Accents of dark blue on small symmetrical plates on her torso and upper legs enhanced her appearance.

Sitting as she was, her head barely made it to his shoulder height. He stopped her wandering hand with his own, carefully taking her hand and putting it back in her lap.

"What?" Marin blinked up at him.

His optics flashed at her cheekily, and she squeaked when he lifted her up (she weighed nothing at all to him, he had to adjust his strength so he didn't toss her over his shoulder) and settled her down sideways in his lap.

"No, no - like this," Marin caught on to what he was doing and turned herself around so she was straddling him frontways, her thighs next to his hips, her front to his front. She kept her hands on his waist, balancing herself.

Her face looked up at him, very close to his own. Her optics had darkened, appearing deep purple. He brought up his hand and caressed her cheek structure with his thumb.

"Do you mind... if I... touch you now?" He sounded hesitant.

She reached up and ran a pointed finger down his forehead, letting it continue on down his noseplates until it ended under his jaw structure. "Please... I'd love you to."

One unsteady hand rested behind her back, helping to keep her from overbalancing, his other hand reached out with spread fingers and rested wholly on her abdominal plating. She had an area there which was unshielded from attack, no more than a hands width wide, where her upper chassis meet the juncture of her hip and crotch plating. Bumblebee found that the palm of his hand fitted neatly there. It was warm, her systems thrumming along just underneath her metal skin.

His hand began to move. Tracing the outline of her hip, moving down to caress her upper thigh.

She shifted on top of him, moving her hands up to rest on his shoulders. He drew his hand back up to her abdomen, trailing feather light touches up the middle of her chest plating, coming to rest at the base of her throat. He stroked his digits along her throat, up to her jaw, back down and along her shoulders, and dropping down to her abdomen once again. Repeating the cycle over and over, with more confidence on his part each time.

A purring sound of delight emitted from her, along with a weak groan.

"Like that?" Bumblebee asked, watching her, hoping he was doing alright.

Marin's head fell back, "Uh huh... Primus, don't stop."

"Okay."

He varied between stroking and patting, using his thumbs to run along the edges of her plating, touching underlying cables and getting his fingers into crevices.

With effort, she shrugged off some of the pleasurable daze she was falling into. Bumblebee needed attention too. "Bee, stop."

"Why?"

"My turn!" She pushed abruptly at his chest with her hands, expecting him to fall backwards so he was lying on his back on the berth. He wasn't budging! She gave a bigger shove. Nope. It was like trying to move a planet over a few inches. God he was strong!

His optics blinked at her in confusion, looking at her hands on his chest. "What are you doing?"

Marin clenched her hands on his metal, "You're supposed to lie down, silly. Stop resisting!"

"Oh! Sorry."

He abruptly arched backwards and his back hit the berth hard, Marin clutching at his chest armor to stay on top like he was the Titanic going down. She winced, "Not that quick! Don't hurt yourself! Are you okay?" She pulled herself up his chest so her face was hovering over his.

"Yes. I think – OH!" Bee's spark jumped sharply in his chest. His optics widened, the light they emitted doubling in intensity. More movement came, the spark seemingly trying to get out of it's casing and leap from his chest. "Ohh..."

Marin put a gentle hand to his chestplates, knowing exactly what was going on. "Bee, you're doing fine."

"Primus, wow, this is nice," Bumblebee's engine revved, startling Marin into rising up on her thighs and looking behind her. As soon as she moved away from his chest, the pleasure in his chest died down.

"Huh?" Bee looked down at himself. Why did the happiness stop? Now it was just tingling.

Marin sat down again, leaning over to look at him, getting close.

His spark jumped again, beating furiously at it's casing. "MARIN!" Bumblebee's chest arched up from his prone position, causing Marin to feel like she was riding him. She hung on, hugging him determinedly. The mech sank down, trembling. Marin grinned, understanding what he was feeling. The first time your spark got truly excited when another willing spark was close, it seemed so incredible, on the level of stars exploding. She wondered how he was going to react when she actually got his chest open and brought their sparks together... oh dear.

She might be picking pieces of him up off the floor by the end of tonight.

She put her cheek on his chest while she spoke to him, "Don't come too soon. There's more to do yet. Try to relax a bit."

Bumblebee's air intakes wheezed, coughing air, "Relax?! HOW!" He groaned again, his spark doing the tango in his chest. Involuntarily, his hands went to his chest, wanting to grab at the metal and rip it open. "I think... I think... should it be open now?" he asked desperately.

"Bee, listen," she ran her hands over his shoulders, caressing his armor, "You need help controlling your spark. Show me your interface cable." She patted the spot where she presumed it lay hidden, a handspan above his crotch.

The covering panel slid open, revealing a thick cable coiled under his plating. With gentle hands she took it out. Bumblebee groaned, his body becoming restless beneath her. She couldn't blame him, she wanted to do a bit of shrieking herself. Her spark was sending pulses strong enough that her hands shook to the beat of each pulse, and she felt light headed.

Her optics dimmed and she whimpered when Bumblebee put his hands to her back, caressing her softly.

"Bumblebee... uh... ohh..."

"Yes?"

"D-don't forget... oh God, you must, uh, wow," Marin paused. His hands had moved to her chest and were stroking her chest plating. Primus, he was good with his fingers. "You need to off-line... " More stroking. Her spark jumped. She snatched his hands off her body, "Stop that! I'm trying to talk to you!"

He laughed at her, amused at the look of frustration on her little face. He wriggled his fingers in her shallow grip. "Sorry."

She sighed, smirking. "Like I was SAYING, don't forget to check that your weapons will go off-line at the same time as your chest plates open. Or else you might have a misfire."

"I'm good, Ratchet checked my programs, it has been hard-wired in. All safety overrides are in place. Plates open, weapons offline." He grinned eagerly at her, "No explosions, no big booms."

"Oh good," Marin sagged with relief. Spark overload first-timers often lost control of their systems at the same time as they climaxed. Not a problem for the general population, only for military Transformers who had in-built plasma cannons, heavy ordinance, and missiles. Any in-built weapon attached directly to their systems could go off, making the whole experience that much more exciting... in a bad way.

"I wouldn't blow your head off, you know. Seriously." Bumblebee said, his optics twinkling with mischief. "No way. You wouldn't love me anymore."

She raised one optic ridge at him, not speaking. Then put both her hands on his chest and sent a very mild magnetic pulse through the palms of her hands and into his chest.

Bumblebee cried out, writhing and grimacing. His optics flickered. "Oh _PRIMUS_..." His body jerked. Squeaks and whimpers of amazement and pleasure came from him.

She sat back, smiling, waiting for him to calm down.

"W-what, what, _was_ that?" Bee gasped. Every piece of his body was tingling and throbbing. His circuits were on fire. Warning codes were appearing on his internal monitors. God that was good.

"A magnetic pulse. Just a small one. Has no one done that to you before?" she asked, reaching up to touch his cheek with one caring hand.

Bumblebee shook his head, still shuddering, "No, no. Never."

"Really?" Her face looked sad, she took her hand back, "That's not good. I know you're new to this, but usually friends muck around with mag pulsing each other. Just not on the chest, you know?"

Bumblebee slowly got his control back with one last tremble. "Optimus and Hide don't do stuff like that. No, wait, Ironhide probably does do it, or did, but he wouldn't say anything about it to me." He shrugged, "He isn't into details like that."

She looked at him with clouded optics. "Well," she trailed a hand up his chest, getting a squeak out of him, "you know about it now, and there's plenty more to _know_."

Marin settled herself as comfortably as she could on top of him and concentrated on working him back up again, getting reading for a spark joining. She smiled when the pace of her agile hands on his body were hesitantly matched by his own on hers. His fingers ghosted and caressed her structure, sometimes hitting the right places to make her whimper and tremble, leaving her wanting more in THAT spot. He memorised what she liked and what she didn't.

When Marin had him almost at begging point (and heck with it, she was losing her own control too) she reached down, slid open her interface receiving panel and joined up his cable to her open slot. It slid in easily, going deep. She grabbed at his waistline with shaking hands and held on, head bowed, while a connection to his spark interface system was initiated from her end of the cable.

"... can't tell... doesn't feel... different.." Bee shifted uneasily under her. He didn't think he could take much more. His spark needed to overload NOW. He was struggling to keep his optics online. They wanted to flicker off, his systems were too chaotic, his CPU didn't want to handle trying to process incoming images through his visual receptors any more on top of everything else. He forced them to stay on.

Marin forcefully slowed the panting of her air intake valves. "I'm controlling it. Just wait... wait... Ah, yes." Her chest panels slid open, revealing a small shimmering spark.

Bumblebee stared at it. He'd seen solar stars. Seen exploding stars, imploding stars, dead stars, galaxies colliding, watched whole planets blow up, seen new planets being born.

Marin's spark eclipsed all of that.

His own chest panels transformed. What was the front panels and bumper bar of a Camaro sports car moved aside in smooth moving parts to reveal his own spark. His turbulent CPU vaguely recognised that his safety programs had also kicked in. His weapons were now useless until his panels closed once more.

His body lurched and a keening cry came from his vocaliser. "M-Marin... please..."

The femme was panting and staring at his naked spark. Slowly, very slowly, she lay down flat on top of him. Her panels slid back further, adjusting to give room for her spark to approach his. She pushed her face into the side of his neck, groaning. She felt his hands grabbing at the ridges of the armor on her back. He was pulling at her. Getting desperate.

Unable to raise her head up to see what she was doing, her arms grabbed at whatever part of his shivering trembling body she could feel. Holding on.

Then her body flexed and her chest dove down into his.

"Bumblebee..."

The outer fields of their sparks merged with an optic disabling flash of light.

Bumblebee was beyond screaming. His body was arched in a long curve up into Marin's body, keeping him suspended off the recharge berth by his shoulders and heels. Every muscle cable, every hydraulic, every system was overloading. It felt like the hand of Primus was sweeping out from his spark and sending the most incredible waves of indescribable pleasure from his core to his extremities.

Marin screamed. She lost her interface connection for a few seconds, too overcome to adjust the spark feedback. She got it back. With sheer force of will she started to manipulate the spark joining. The waves of pleasure Bumblebee was overcome with started to flow in a circular motion and settle back into his chest. No longer were the waves feeling like they were escaping through his fingertips and feet.

Tendrils of spark energy flared from where their sparks touched, bathing Bee's quarters in electric blue light.

He moaned. Slowly, with Marin hanging on with tight clinging arms and legs, riding her own spark overload, Bumblebee's body started to relax back down onto the berth.

The incredible pleasure turned into a glowing ball of happiness centred in his chest. Then it broke, ebbing away and leaving residual floating feelings of contentment and satisfaction behind, and he found himself staring up at the ceiling of his quarters. It was over.

"..."

::cough::

Damn. His voice was gone again. He was so happy he didn't care.

"Bee?" Marin's hoarse voice got his attention back to her. She was holding herself up on shaking extended arms above his body and staring at him. Her own chest was already closed. "...Close your plates."

The femme had at some stage pulled back her chest so their sparks were no longer touching. He didn't remember that bit.

"Bumblebee? Your plates." She had lifted a shaking hand and was pushing weakly at the raised edges of his exposed chest. "Bee, please... can you hear me?"

With slow jerky motions he got his chest to transform back to its regular formation. His spark disappeared from view. Marin gave a shaky cry and allowed her body to dump itself down onto his, her head turned with her cheek pressed into his armor. She whimpered. Before he could ask if she was okay she started to laugh hopelessly, sounding happy.

"Congratulations," her hand patted his upper chest, her voice a whispering croak, "you've just done your first spark joining... and overload."

He squeezed her hard enough in a full body hug that she squeaked up at him. "OH!" Her optics looked weakly at him, a smile on her face. "Lost your voice, huh?"

He made a vague nodding motion. Primus, he was tired.

"Mine isn't too good either. You made me scream, you were good."

Bumblebee glowed with male satisfaction. Excellent! He hadn't wanted this to be all about him. He was ecstatic she'd enjoyed it too.

Marin smiled, looking dazed, "Okay. Time for another first."

His optics blinked tiredly at her. What? There was _more_?

"Your first post-interface recharge." She squeezed her arms around his neck in total affection, having no intention of moving from lying on his body. "Thanks Bumblebee, that was incredible." Her voice muffled, "Go into recharge... see Ratchet... tomorrow... for your voice."

Bumblebee missed the last bit. He was already knocked out, his arms hanging on tight to his femme.


	9. Chapter 9

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: Just to clarify what happened in the last chappie, I don't think spark joining or 'merging' automatically results in a permanent spark-bond; sparkmates forever and all that. If that was the case, I reckon any man who penetrated a woman during intercourse could be declared married to her! Instant husband and wife, eeeek! Now that would be the end of sex, eh? The Transformers would be a sad bunch because none of them would 'getting' any... Ironhide would absolutely fritz – or have multiple femme sparkmates all over the galaxy... a harem, perhaps?

As for producing a sparkling (progeny) that would only occur in a spark bonded couple, using yet another system to bud off a new spark from the merged sparks during spark overload.

I don't usually do this, but I really have to thank some people, so here goes:

Big thanks to some reviewers who have offered support and ideas – Plenoptic (Ta! Yes, I did see what you did to my Magnus... my poor boy), Flamingmarsh (plot twists, yeah!), Litahatchee (the worlds most wonderful reviewer! Honestly! And fantastic writer too! Thanks mate!), i-love-me-some-leggypoo (bouncing ideas and doing the most brilliant female OC's; Sophie and Nightshade), and Queen of the Red Skittle (lovely, heartfelt comments and support).

Thanks guys!

**Chapter 9**

Marin's optics powered up slowly from stand-by mode, her body coming out of recharge slowly. Civilians didn't rush the waking up process, it was only military types and sadists that forced their programs to boot up ultra quickly so they could scuttle away for their waiting duties. She stretched a little and smiled, remembering whose recharge platform she was lying on.

A broad four-fingered yellow and grey hand touched her shoulder softly. She turned her head to the side to see her partner.

"Hello..." Her voice was whispering, as if not wanting to disturb the moment. She touched his face with the tips of her fingers. "Bumblebee." She smiled.

Their time together last night had been very special. She was aware how lucky she was to have Bumblebee. You never really knew if a new partner was going to turn out alright, especially in her experience. She wasn't all that pretty or big, or tall, or particularly funny. She wasn't rich. Wasn't a soldier under the legendary Optimus Prime. Didn't socialise in high-up circles. Had an un-exciting repetitive job. She considered herself very ordinary.

She thought that if Bumblebee hadn't run into her (literally) in the hallway, and been so pre-occupied with apologising that both of them stumbled into a date, he never would have asked her out. Or noticed her. She was just too plain.

Bee's optics brightened momentarily at her and he leaned over to nuzzle her neck, then pulled back. His recharge programs had finished before hers did, and he had taken the time to study her as she lay recharging. He couldn't get over the fact she was on HIS recharge berth, and it wasn't some wacko dream! Thank Primus Sideswipe had been kind enough to help him with getting and installing the double size berth.

She smiled at him, reaching out a hand to touch his. He held her hand reverently, like a holy object, as if not believing that he had a femme. A femme who LOVED him, and he had actually interfaced with said femme only a few Earth hours ago.

His first time ever.

Then he broke the tender moment by tackling her with glee, getting her underneath him and pressing their bodies together, gaining a surprised squeak from her. His hands stroked, caressed and explored. Each action followed by needy moans from Marin. He remembered her hot spots from last night and used them to his advantage. She responded well to his probing agile hands. Very well.

He couldn't talk, but it was obvious to Marin by Bumblebee's writhing movements, arching back and trembling clutching hands on her chassis as they clambered all over each other, that he was well satisfied too. The enormous flash his spark produced at the moment of overload was another big clue to how delighted he was.

It wasn't until afterwards that Bumblebee realised his next door neighbour, Prowl, would be wondering about the LOUD noises and screams coming through the walls from Bee's quarters. The other side was okay, that led to another hallway. Unless he and Marin made noises loud enough to scare pedestrians? Bee grinned to himself. He hadn't ever had to worry about being a noisy neighbour before. It felt good.

Marin lay on her side next to him, one arm draped over his chest, her head on his shoulder and whooshing air steadily through her intakes to cool down. He hugged her close, pulling her in with his left arm and then stroking her back panels. They had lots of time. It was his weekend off, Marin's too, luckily, he thought dazedly. Did they time this well, or what?

"Fast... learner.." Marin panted, patting her fingers on his chest panels.

He nodded happily. And he had to tell Ratchet! Ironhide too... after he strung him along a little. He was fun to rattle. He wasn't sure about telling Optimus though, that was going to be an embarrassing one. Ratchet was easy, he was a medic, they treated such things as everyday routine. As for Ironhide, he was a self-confessed interface freak. He'd also been asking Bee every second day or so if he was a proper mech yet, something which had riled Bee. You were only 'proper' if you had spark overloaded? What?

Still, Ironhide cared a lot for him in his own way. He'd been his guardian (along with Optimus) ever since he was a sparkling. The warrior's love was rough, but pure, and never wavered. No matter how crude or tactless Ironhide could be, he gave Bumblebee any help he needed or asked for. He was always there.

After an overlong farewell to Marin (for the next Earth hour or so, at least) Bumblebee went to the Medical Centre, looking for Ratchet. That mech worked six days out of the seven day Earth week. The other Autobot's had opted for a five day rostered week (with alternating weekends on or off).

Bumblebee poked his head into Ratchet's office. He had felt strange walking to the Med Centre. His first day as an overloaded mech. He had been sure the others passing him in the corridor had been able to tell (Ironhide said a mech often retained a faint spark glow on their skin after an overload. Bumblebee hadn't been sure if that was an Ironhide prank or not. He couldn't see anything different about his own metallic skin).

"Bumblebee!" Ratchet looked up at the mute youngling and paused in the act of automatically throwing an angry datapad at his office guest. He put it back down on his desk, covering it with his hand at the mech's suspicious look. "Er, what can I do for you?"

Bee looked at him, all pure and innocent, and grabbed a spare datapad off Ratchet's desk, writing quickly with a point pen. He handed it to the medic.

Taking the pad, Ratchet's spark did a flip flop. This might be it! Better tread carefully. "Your voice has gone again, yes, well, I guessed that one right away. What were you doing when it stopped working?"

Bumblebee blinked at the CMO. _Was he serious?_ _Did he have to SAY what had done it in?_

Ratchet stared right back expectantly. Looking equally innocent.

Bee shuffled his feet, looking down at the floor. Primus.

A broad smirk suddenly appeared on his friend's faceplates, "Does it have anything to do with this?" Ratchet held up a middle finger in a very rude gesture. "You know, you giving what the human's call, 'The Bird', to Ironhide on a daily basis?"

Bumblebee bent over, his frame shaking with silent laughter. Finally looking up, he nodded shyly.

"You did it!" Ratchet's entire facial structure beamed with pride.

Bumblebee made quick 'shooshing' motions with his hands, looking out Ratchet's office door. _No need to tell the entire medbay!_

Ratchet appeared confused, were Bee's hands saying 'no'? "You didn't do it?"

Bumblebee slapped himself in the face, his shoulders drooping.

Ratchet stared closely at him, "You did do it?"

Bumblebee nodded, fluttering his hands frantically. _Yes, yes!_

"You DID?!" Ratchet swayed in his seat. Holy Primus, the youngling had done it!

Bumblebee stood there looking deliriously happy. He jumped when a hand slapped him on the back between his doorwings.

"Morning Bee!" Ironhide said gruffly, pushing past him to hand something to Ratchet. "What are you doing here so early?"

Bumblebee's posture turned devious. He narrowed his optics at the broad black mech and crossed his arms.

Ironhide stood still next to Ratchet, looking at his youngling, "What? Oh no, your voice has gone to slag again, right?"

"He did it!" Ratchet squeaked excitedly. "HE DID IT!" The medic sent a rapid comlink transmission to Optimus, excited, squealing about 'BEE'S A MECH!'. Their Leader had better make record time getting here! This was a momentous occasion. This called for a celebration! He'd even un-lock his imported high grade cupboard.

Bumblebee grimaced, thinking - _Ratchet, not so loud!_

Ironhide gaped at Bee, his optics blinking, "...You did?"

Bumblebee nodded shyly, staring down at his restless feet.

"YES!" Ironhide raised his arms in the air, pumping a fist. "Oh thank Primus, I had this feeling you'd never get around to it."

Bumblebee made a face and stuck up a finger. Of course it would've happened! Did his guardian have so little faith in him that way?

Ironhide merely laughed, "Yeah, yeah, youngling, I do get the finger thing." He paused, grinning. "So. Who was on top, you or her?"

Ratchet gaped at the obnoxious black mech, "_Ironhide_!". The medic's hand found a big wrench, and without pause, he chucked it straight at Ironhide's head. With an ease he'd always possessed, Ironhide casually ducked the thrown object. An unfortunate move, considering the mech who had just walked in the door behind him.

::CLANG::

The heavy wrench impacted with the forehead of Optimus Prime. A surprised Optimus had time for a shocked expression of pain and incredulity on his face before he fell over onto his back with a strangled cry and stiff body.

"...Oh _slag_..." Ratchet gasped, shoving his chair backwards and bolting to assist the stricken Commander. "Optimus! OPTIMUS! I'm sorry! Can you hear me?!" He leaned over the enormous mech's bulk, staring down into Prime's blank face.

Prime's optics blinked and grunted, his massive frame trembling. "Ugh."

"For the love of Primus, Ratchet, do you have to throw things?!" Ironhide demanded, kneeling on the other side of the Autobot Commander and wincing down at his friend.

"Ugh," Optimus said again. He was a bit out of it. "Ugh?"

"That was meant for you, slagger! Don't you blame me for this!" Ratchet yelled at Ironhide.

"You threw it!" Ironhide shouted, getting highly annoyed.

"_YOU_ ducked!" Ratchet spat back.

Bumblebee shoved himself underneath Ironhide's hovering frame to get a look at his mentor. Optimus didn't look good. He had a sharp dent in his head armor where Ratchet's wrench had clocked him a good one. Bee's faceplates were heavy with distraught worry. He looked up anxiously at Ratchet.

"Everyone stand back, give me room here, will you?!" Ratchet growled, putting a hand on Ironhide's intrusive chest and forcing the mech backwards. Bumblebee did likewise, scrambling back.

"Optimus?" Ratchet said gently.

Prime's big blue optics stared uncomprehendingly up at the CMO. "Ugh."

"How many fingers do you see?" Ratchet asked, holding up two straight digits in a 'V' formation.

"Ugh?"

Ratchet's optics dimmed with worry. "Please Optimus, how many?"

Optimus looked like he was thinking hard. "Ugh..."

Now Ratchet started to become alarmed. "Can you say anything else other than 'ugh'?"

"Ugh..."

"Try again," Ratchet urged him soothingly. Bumblebee and Ironhide looked on, equal parts scared shitless and horrified.

Optimus looked like he was concentrating with difficulty, then he gave a hopeless smile, "Ugh?"

"Oh primus..." Ratchet sat back on his heels, rubbing one hand on his own forehead. "Now you've done it, Ironhide. His comprehension and speech centres have been knocked off-line. He can't think logically or articulate himself. It'll be at least an Earth hour or two before he gets back to normal."

"I. Did. Not. Throw. It. DICKHEAD!"

"Can't you at least stick with Cybertronian swear words, pit-brain!" Ratchet swore back at him.

"Shove it up ya-"

Ironhide was interrupted by a soft feminine voice.

"...Oh my God..."

All of the mech's looked up at the voice. In the doorway stood Marin, her optics wide, her hands slack at her sides, "What the... WHY is Optimus Prime on the floor?"

Ironhide scowled, "He's sick?"

Bumblebee smacked him in the back of the head. Hard.

"OW! Frag off!"

Ratchet ignored the lot of them, kneeling next to the stricken Prime and hating himself. "Great. Wonderful. Optimus has been knocked senseless. And it's all my fault."

"See?!" Ironhide snarled.

"Slag off!" Ratchet barked, then sighed. "There's nothing else I can do. Optimus, I'm sorry, I have to officially remove you from your capacity as Autobot Leader until you have your capabilities back. You cannot make any Leadership decisions until you are fully functioning again." Ratchet was pretty sure that Optimus didn't understand a word being said to him, but he continued anyway. "Now, let's get you to a nice medical bed, alright?"

Optimus Prime smiled up at his friends, not caring or understanding in the least what they were jabbering about. They were funny. He giggled.

The whole room froze.

"Did you hear that?" Ironhide said in awe.

Another giggle. This time followed by a more familiar "Ugh."

Ratchet looked like he was about to cry. "Let's get him to a med berth. Move it!"

Bumblebee pitched in too, all of them assisting to move Optimus Prime's oversized body and heavy weight from the floor to an empty berth in the medbay closest to Ratchet's office. Once they had the big imposing mech laid out on a berth (still letting off unfortunate giggles, and the "Ugh" sound too), Ratchet set about informing the Chain-of-Command about Prime's regrettable accident.

And who did it.

Soon enough, Ratchet was getting stared down at by quite a few more bot's.

Ironhide brooded, _Shouldn't have ducked_.

Bumblebee was holding onto Marin, the femme pressed firmly against his side. Both of them couldn't tear their worried optics from the mech on the berth.

Prowl was standing next the bed of his incapacitated Commander with his arms folded over his chest. His face was showing a heck of a lot more emotion than was normal for him. He couldn't take seeing his Prime laid out in such a condition, and all because of a wrench in the head? The Second-In-Command had already paged Optimus' sparkmate, Elita One. Prowl himself wouldn't be the one to punish Ratchet for his wayward tool throwing, he was going to leave THAT to the volatile Femme Commander.

There was a resounding crash as the medbay doors were rammed open, followed by feminine spitting and cursing.

_Oh looky, here she comes now..._ Prowl thought with a faint grin, rocking on his feet. It was so nice not to be responsible for every tiny thing. That femme was such a great help to him and Optimus – when he was functioning.

First Aid was anxiously going over all of Prime's vital readings. He re-affirmed what Ratchet had already told them. No lasting damage, but Optimus' higher mental functions had indeed been taken off-line by the blunt force hit to the front of his CPU. He had no comprehension, logic or recognisable speech (if you didn't count the oft-said random 'Ugh's and manic giggling at the actions of those around him).

"Optimus! Oh, pit..." Elita One's rose painted sleek form shoved its way up to the bed of her stricken mate, looking down at him. She smoothed a careful hand over his cheekplates, "Are you okay?"

Optimus smiled stupidly, pawing at her hand.

She looked at First Aid pleadingly, "_Will _he be okay?"

Ratchet's assistant nodded, "It will take a few hours for his CPU to recalibrate and get him back to normal, but he'll be fine. He just needs to stay quiet for a while."

Optimus blinked up at her angelic face from his prone position. Then giggled, "Ugh, ugh!"

Elita patted him, then put her head in her hands, muttering softly. She looked up. With a whole lot of menace. Directly at Ratchet.

"YOU!"

"Me...?" Ratchet squeaked.

"YOU'E MINE!" Elita started to stalk towards the concerned CMO. No one moved to stop her. Or save Ratchet.

Ratchet backed up, holding his hands in front of him. "Not in the medbay, Elita."

The femme kept coming.

"Not in the medbay!!" Ratchet's voice started to crack.

A laser rifle appeared in the femme's hand, subspaced from her weapons locker.

"Need a hand, 'Lita?" The light blue form of Chromia; Ironhide's sparkmate; came striding up next to her Commander, an even LARGER, double-barrelled rifle in her hand (she was Ironhide's bonded, after all. She got any huge nasty weapon her little spark desired). "Especially since it was my mate he was throwing things at."

"Always," Elita growled, gesturing at the quivering medic with the end of her rifle. "He needs a lesson in how to be respectful and less aggressive." Elita had never been a big Ratchet fan.

"Yup." Chromia booted the charge on her gun with the flick of a finger, causing it to whine with pulsing menace. Completely contradicting Elita's solemn words.

"FRAG!" Ratchet high-tailed it. Straight out the emergency exit. Without opening the door.

"Nasty medic! Nasty! Stop picking on others you perverted, mean, rude little mech!" Marin shouted out through the wreckage of the mangled door after the running CMO, gathering her courage to speak up and move out of Bumblebee's protective embrace shielding her from all the military-types.

Marin whirled, huffed, and walked over to Ironhide. "And you!"

Ironhide blinked down at her curiously, "What?"

"Stop making niggling comments at Bumblebee! I know you started this!" One of her fingers reached up to stab at his chest. She couldn't quite make it that far, he was too tall, and ended up poking him in the waist, glaring at him.

Ironhide stepped back, holding out his hands, "Whoa femme, take it easy..."

Bumblebee beamed at her proudly – a wee bit shocked at her courageous words – but proud. He couldn't wait to introduce her to Sam. And when he got his voice back he would have to tell Marin that Ratchet was really a nice mech. He just had a fetish for throwing things when he was irritated. Especially when it was Ironhide doing the irritating.

The sound of high-pitched shrieks (Ratchet) followed by some deep explosions and whining rifles (Elita and Chromia) caught everyone's attention.

No one was surprised to see a cranky Ratchet walking around the next day with nasty burn marks all over his aft. Prowl snickered every time he caught sight of the poor CMO. At least he had been spared having to punish Ratchet for knocking their Commander senseless.

And it had been amusing to see a fully recovered Optimus spend the next day getting his own payback. He'd started sneaking up to the CMO behind his back, peek over his shoulder and say loudly, "UGH!", causing Ratchet to yelp and drop whatever was in his hands, yelling, "STOP THAT!".

_Train station, inner suburban Tranquillity... late afternoon.._

Sam Witwicky hefted his luggage, squinting in the harsh summer sun. He had arrived back in Tranquillity on an overnight train from his university, and was expecting to be picked up outside the station by his best friend, Bumblebee. So, where was the happy little bot?

::HONK::

A sleek yellow Camaro came up behind him in the street, it's engine revving excitedly, headlights flashing.

Sam spun around, "BEE!". He took fast strides over to his friend, dodging other pedestrians and panting with the effort of dragging his gear. The drivers door popped open at the same time as the boot lid sprang up. Sam heaved his bags into the boot, slammed it, muttered an apology for slamming it, and practically ran back around to the open drivers door, diving inside headfirst. The door thunked shut by itself once he was inside and the window tinting darkened.

Without the dark windows in place, pedestrians would have seen the boy hugging the dashboard, planting a kiss on the steering wheel and talking excitedly to himself.

"Missed you! God, I missed all of you guys! How you been?" Sam said, running his hand back and forth along Bumblebee's dashboard. "Is Ironhide still being a moron? How's Optimus, good? He should've re-arranged the US Government departments to his liking by now. And Ratchet! Has he been seeing Mojo?"

"Sam-"

The boy kept talking, slumping back in his seat and rubbing at his eyes tiredly, "Uni is great but it's really wearing me down, you know? OH! How's Mikaela? What's she been up to? And Will! His daughter should be walking by now. I think-"

"Sam!" Bumblebee retracted the drivers seat abruptly so it was no longer upright, letting the boy fall with a shriek into a lying down position.

"May I please get one word in?" Bee said lightly, bouncing on his shock absorbers.

Sam looked sheepish, using the steering wheel to pull himself upright again, "Yeah, sorry Bee, I yap too much don't I?"

"Never. I missed you too! I'm so glad you're here again! And..." there was hesitation in Bumblebee's voice. "I have some news too." He sounded very grave. Not at all like his usual perky self.

Sam paid urgent attention, worried. "What's wrong, Bee? Everything okay?"

"Sort of. There have been a few new developments."

Sam winced at Bumblebee's cautious tone. "Decepticons? Don't tell me they're back, please God, not that."

"No, no. We're still in the clear. It's just that..." Bumblebee trailed off. Primus, he loved teasing the boy. Sam was getting worked up that something awful had happened.

"Bee," Sam laid a comforting hand on Bee's steering wheel, "Tell me, please, what's got you upset?" He scrunched up his nose, "Ironhide had a heart attack and keeled off from old age?"

"No!" Bumblebee laughed, "we don't have heart attacks, Sam. Ironhide is, unfortunately, in perfect health."

Sam leaned forward, putting a hand on Bee's hot dashboard, "So, what is it? What's going on?"

"Well... you see that blue Smart Two-for-Two car behind us?"

"Huh?" Sam twisted himself around and peered anxiously between the seats, looking out Bee's narrow back window at the small, three door, blue car behind them. "Sort of. What about it?"

Bee was silent for a few seconds, dragging out the suspense, then blurted, "She's my FEMME FRIEND!"

"_WHAT_! What?! Oh God," Sam squealed, slapping the wheel, "You go, Bee! You the _man_!"

"Yes, I am indeed, the mech," Bumblebee giggled like a girl. Sam laughed at him.

"What's her name? Who is she?" Sam went back to looking out the window at the silent car, abandoning any pretence that he was 'driving'.

"Her name is Marin," Bumblebee started his engine and began to pull away from the curb before Sam could jump out and say hello, Marin starting her engine and following along, "and I will introduce you to her when we arrive at the base."

"WOW! Man, this is so cool, I can't believe it! You got one! Yes!" Sam bounced in his seat. "Have you kissed her and everything?"

"I have done..." Bee paused. He had wanted to tell Sam he had been intimate with the femme when they were back at base and in his quarters, that he was no longer a Cybertronian 'virgin', but he couldn't hold himself back, "I've done _everything_, yes," he purred.

Sam gasped, mouth opening comically. "Everything? As in, EVERYTHING?"

Bee's engine revved hard joyously. "Yes, everything. Cool, huh?"

Sam screamed, "OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD, geez, Bee! Congrats Buddy!"

"Thank you!" Bee said excitedly. The song, 'I'm Too Sexy' started blaring out of the sound system with heavy bass.

Sam grinned, motioning at him to turn it down a bit so he could talk instead of yell, "Should I call you Big Bee now? As in, Bee-Who-Has-Done-The-Deed? Hey, what about Big Bot Bee? Bee the Sexy? Or just, 'The Femme Magnet', no, wait, that's what we call Optimus, but hey, he's COMMANDER Femme Magnet, you could be Lieutenant Femme Magnet!"

"SAM!"

"...Sorry. Heh. Seriously man, congrats! This is so awesome!"

Marin kept her monitors on the movements of the human boy currently sitting in Bumblebee's drivers seat. From the wild arm gestures of the human, she was wondering what Bee was telling him. She smiled internally - probably the very thing that mech's everywhere all talked about; femmes and interfacing. Especially since she and Bumblebee had completed their first ever interface overload on Friday night, and done it several more times hence.

"Awesome." Bumblebee pondered that heavy word. "Yes, it is." He remembered something. "Did I tell you what happened to Optimus, Sam?"

"What? No."

Bumblebee grinned, "Let me explain..."


	10. Chapter 10

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: This update is short, my apologies. I am trying to keep my plot together, not easy or motivating once the initial rush of fic writing wears off. And whoever made the suggestion to me for the 'plot point' at the end (you'll see) please remind me who you were, and I'll put your name in the credits. I honestly cannot recall WHO suggested it, but I'm very gratefully using it. Ta!

**Chapter 10**

Bumblebee pulled up outside the base entrance, pulling over into a zone specifically marked as a 'park & transform' area.

There were now so many Transformers at the Autobot base, it was turning into a proper city – with all of it's own laws and regulations; as Prowl liked to continually remind everybody. It was no longer acceptable to pull up and transform wherever a 'bot felt like – there could be another car behind him that wanted to keep driving straight ahead. Making for a very awkward situation when the car in front ended up with another car nose's planted in his aft. Ironhide had snickered for one hour straight over the thought of Ratchet surgically removing un-transformed cars from the aft's of other unlucky mech's; until Ratchet pointed out the very real concept of Optimus Prime's massive grill rammed into Ironhide's wide black aft. Permanently.

The snickering stopped.

Sam Witwicky exited Bumblebee, turning to look behind him at Marin, Bumblebee's girlfriend, parking behind him and beginning her transformation. The Smart car smoothly turned into a very small, blue-colored femme. Bumblebee felt a twinge of jealousy when for the first time, Sam failed to stand and watch HIM in awe as he transformed.

Marin cocked her head at the human boy, feeling nervous but still smiling, "Hello."

"Uh, guh. Hi?" Sam's hand crept up and waved weakly. He wasn't good with girls, and apparently his nervousness extended to females of other species as well. He was confident and relaxed (mostly) with Mikaela, and he had thought he was forever cured of that horrible, fumbling, _stupid_ behaviour he exhibited around girls... but no.

Bumblebee nudged his human in the back, his optics sparkling. "Sam, may I introduce my partner, Marin?"

"Um, y-yeah?" Sam stuttered, blushing. The femme was cute. Not beautiful, not sexy, not anything amazing, really. She clearly wasn't a warrior, not like the other femme's Sam had already met. Arcee – the sexy sassy one; Elita One – Prime's confident warrior-like girl; and Chromia – Ironhide's tough-as-nuts, rough-mouthed femme. Marin seemed more like the little girl next door in pig-tails that waved shyly through the window occasionally and liked to have pretend tea parties.

Bumblebee rolled his optics, "Marin, this is Sam Witwicky." He paused for effect. "Destroyer of Megatron."

"WHAT? _Really_? Bumblebee! You never mentioned that! We need to talk about the things you need to tell me in advance!" Flustered, Marin knelt down onto one knee, putting her head merely one a hand's span above Sam's own. Her optics keenly looked over the startled boy. "Sam, I would dearly love to hear you tell me how you removed the blight of Megatron from our universe." Her optic ridge's blinked solemnly down at him.

"Ah, you know," Sam shrugged, allowing some salvaged pride in himself to fill his chest, "It wasn't much, really. Optimus helped. He told me what to do. Sort of."

Marin nodded, standing up, "Bee? Why don't we hit the rec room? Drinks for everyone? Then Sam can tell us what he did."

Bumblebee's optics flashed cheekily, as he offered his hand to Marin, "I know, I was there, remember?"

"Yes, yes, of course you were," Marin took his hand in her own, patting it lovingly.

Sam followed along beside the couple, hands in his jean pockets. "Mikaela saved Bee, she hauled his ass-"

"Aft," Bumblebee corrected, "and you shouldn't swear."

"Aft, ass, whatever, I'm over eighteen now," Sam smirked, waving him off, "Out of the line of fire with a tow truck."

"Who is Mikaela?" Marin asked politely.

Sam smiled broadly, "She's _my_ girlfriend."

"Oh." Marin smiled softly, looking up at Bumblebee with affection, who returned her look ten-fold. "I've got a partner too. It's a nice feeling."

"Yes," Sam nodded enthusiastically.

The chronometer had just ticked over to being officially early evening, and the rec room would be seriously crowded later on, but it was comfortably pleasant at the moment. Bumblebee led his friend and girlfriend to a vacant table, including a human-sized booster chair for his boy. It didn't take long for Sam to somehow blurt and stutter his way through an explanation of 'How-The-Human-Killed-Megabutt' for an intently listening Marin.

"Don't listen to everything the squishie says, Marin, he over-exaggerates. Move over, Bee. Evening, Marin." Ironhide thumped his wide aft down into a chair right next to Bumblebee, smirking.

Bumblebee glared at his Guardian, just barely managing to snatch his drink away from Ironhide's sneakily creeping hand along the tabletop. Ironhide glared back grumpily when he missed his target of a free drink. Sam and Marin shared a hopeless look.

"Ironhide, don't be so rude. Ask before you sit. May we sit with you? I shall personally remove my Weapons Specialist if he is at all intruding on your privacy." Optimus Prime stood calmly behind Marin's chair, causing the femme to swivel her head to peer upwards at who was talking. "Hello Marin. Sam, nice to have you back again."

The boy waved meekly, wiggling his fingers and smiling. "Heya, Optimus."

Ironhide leant back and crossed his arms, growling, "You won't be _removing_ anything, aft-head. Ratchet has a damn good throwing arm, don't you think?"

Marin blinked and choked over her drink, trying to quickly wipe away the spilled mess with her fingers. How could Ironhide get away with referring to the legendary Optimus Prime as a 'aft-head'? She watched as Optimus reflexively felt around the mark on his forehead where Ratchet's tool had dented him senseless.

Optimus wasn't without his own come-backs though. His glare was frosty. "Don't think that I won't set Elita and Arcee on your over-sized aft for target practice. Elita very much enjoyed her workout with Ratchet." He gracefully lowered his large mass into a chair next to Sam.

Bumblebee hung his head in his hands with a whimper, "We came here for a quiet drink and catch-up. Peace and quiet. Pleasant companionship." His voice was scratchy but usable. "Instead we get hijacked by Thelma and Louise."

"Uh, they're females, Bee." Sam appeared confused.

"Yes, I know, Sam. Thelma and Louise."

Ironhide couldn't make a comeback to that. He didn't have a clue who they were, or why being a female was a problem. He'd ask Chromia about it later. He made another attempt at Bumblebee's drink. And got smacked.

Sam burped and patted his chest. "Oh, excuse me. How's the head, Optimus? Bee told me all about it."

"It is..." Optimus cocked his head, shifting his legs under the table to get comfortable, "Much better thank you, Sam. Just a few stray bits of CPU memory that get mixed up, nothing to worry about."

Ironhide chuckled, making a 'dumb' silly-optic expression, "Ugh?" he laughed, "And the 'stray bits of memory' are; which secret code is for releasing nuclear missiles and which is for opening my apartment door?"

Optimus Prime glared with deadly intentions, "I am NOT that mixed up. Ratchet cleared me for the duty of saving Autobot lives – including yours, sadly."

Marin kept her face carefully expression-free. Then kicked Ironhide under the table.

Ironhide jerked in his chair. He frowned, his optics sweeping the occupants at the table. Bumblebee smirked and pointed a finger at Sam. The black mech loomed his face close to the yellow mechs, his optics darkening. "Bumblebee, his legs are not long enough." The words were low and deep.

Marin leaned across in front of a startled Bumblebee and thrust her face close-up to Ironhide's, "I did it. Start being nicer to Optimus and Bumblebee, you bully." She sat back down in her chair sweetly, taking a demure taste of her drink.

Ironhide's optic ridges rose up in a flabbergasted surprised expression. Optimus chuckled deeply. Bumblebee blew a raspberry. Sam just shrugged and took a sip of his drink.

"You know, I _like_ her." Ironhide grinned at Marin happily. Optimus groaned, looking disturbed. Wonderful. Another femme to protect from The Great Slut.

Bumblebee grabbed onto his femme and held her tightly, glowering at the big black mech.

Sam held up a middle finger and directed it at Ironhide, "Need a spare hand, Bee? Or did you forget this?"

The Camaro brightened, "Thank you, Sam."

Ironhide went to make a re-buttal – and was thrown from his chair. But not by any of the other bots... they were all on the ground as well, the rumbling of a massive explosion causing the floor to tremble and shudder. Alarms began shrieking.

The base intercom started blaring instructions, "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! All assigned soldiers, report to your stations immediately! I REPEAT-"

"No need to make a repeat, Prowl," Optimus said darkly, crouching on one knee and staring out the rec room window at the east end of the base – that had just been blown to bits. Pieces of the massive internal girders used in its construction were sticking up like toothpicks. The base foundations were still rumbling with aftershocks. "Ironhide!" he snapped.

"On it," The black mech scrambled to his feet. His cannon gyros began to harshly whirr, blue and yellow energy flaring from their deployment ends. He promptly began re-routing all communications to be handled deftly by his sub-processor while taking hard running steps out the rec room door, intent on kicking aft.

Optimus turned to his friends, "Marin! Get to Bumblebee's quarters and lock yourself in! His room his deep enough to shield you from any further attacks." He didn't mention 'unless the whole base blows up, but what the heck, then we'd all be goners'. His optics fell on Sam. "Take Sam with you."

"NO! No way, I'm not hiding away-"

"SAM!" Bumblebee's voice was surprisingly sharp, "Take Marin and keep her safe! Do not argue! GO!"

Optimus Prime was already disappearing out the door, his huge form swerving around other running horrified mechs and femmes. Bumblebee sent a swift internal message to his femme. _Stay safe! Don't leave my quarters! Love you..._ then took off after Optimus, his smaller body much more agile in the chaos, ducking and weaving.

Marin looked down at the human boy with terrified optics. "Now what?" she whispered.

Sam heaved a sigh, motioning her to start walking while feeling dread hang heavy in his chest for the Autobot's that were undoubtedly already deceased. "I don't know... but we better do as they say. Here we go again..."


	11. Chapter 11

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: This has been one HARD chapter to write! Humor comes so easily to me to write, but drama... ugh... nope. 

**Chapter 11**

_**Close to midnight, Autobot Base, Earth...**_

The base was shattered. The east quarter; gone. Optimus Prime stood utterly still over the softly glowing ruins of his first base on Earth. His presence tall and solid above the destruction; chest lights glowing, hands in fists, thighs spread and braced apart, his massive rifle a long forgotten weapon on his back. Only his optics moved, watching his searching soldiers, scanning the debris, making calculations and decisions. Gathering what information he could. The darkness was lit by several spotlights, sporadic pockets of still-smouldering fires, and the headlights of several mech's working around their quiet Leader, silently poking their way through the melted ash and rubble at their feet. Looking for two things – evidence, and bodies.

Only Ironhide broke the silence. A small curse. A hiss. The offering of something small to Ratchet when he came upon what remained of Ratchet's quarters. The CMO took quick looks at whatever Ironhide offered to him, then tossed it over his shoulder, shaking his head. He didn't care about what had happened to his room, only that he thanked Primus he hadn't been IN it when the attack took place. His medbay held everything that was precious to him. 

The Autobots had quickly realised there was no 'attack'. No arriving Decepticons making a surprise party using missiles and rapid-fire armament. It had been a bomb. A big one. Planted deep within the east wing and detonated. There was no enemy to shoot; yet; much to Ironhide's clear disgust. 

"OVER HERE! Ratchet!" The cry of a female caused every mech in the area to stiffen, optics searching out the caller. 

Ratchet's legs were surprisingly agile and swift when he got the urge to run. He left Ironhide behind with no effort, reaching the side of the Autobot who had made the alarmed call. 

Chromia's optics were blunt and cool as she stood over her discovery. She wiped one forearm over her optics, clearing away soot and ash, balancing on the shifting ground beneath her narrow feet. Ratchet crouched down beside the remains of a solider beyond help. 

The CMO's head bowed, saddened. He didn't pull out any scanners. No tools. His hands hung limply from his wrists perched on his spread knees. Hopeless. The mech's body was so twisted and bent... only the head still in its characteristic shape really made it obvious that this mess had ever been alive. 

Optimus Prime's footsteps crunched to a halt next to the medic. His spark constricted painfully. He knew every solider that had ever served him and the Autobot cause. He never forgot a name or a face. Especially mech's like this. His shoulders shifted, lowering. A soft sad murmur, "Bluestreak..." 

Ironhide had been reaching for Chromia when he heard a shout of alarm. He pivoted on one bulky leg, lifting his cannons. A few lengths behind the discovery, Bumblebee was struggling to hold back a determined Smokescreen. The yellow bot was attempting to haul the larger stricken mech to the ground using expert hand-holds and leverage. 

"NO, Smokescreen! Don't! You can't do anything! You don't want to see!" Bumblebee lost his one good hand hold and Smokescreen surged desperately forward, dragging the clinging Camaro with him. Optimus moved to intercept him, holding out one forbidding hand. 

"Down, boy!" Sunstreaker gritted out from his clenched jaw, as he lent Bee an expert hand and hauled Smokescreen down to the ground with a fast jerk and slam, holding him there. "Bee's right. Don't go there. Just don't." 

Smokescreen's mouthplates were open. His optics flickered. His body writhed, feet kicking, "Let – GO! BLUESTREAK!"

"No. You don't want to remember him like that." Sunstreaker kept the grief-wrought mech pinned firmly by the shoulders. "Ratchet! Kinda need a _hand_ here!" he yelled. 

"Got it." The medic had run with long strides to the commotion. Bluestreak he couldn't do anything about, his sparkmate on the other hand... Gentle hands pushed Smokescreen's grimacing head to the side, exposing the underside of his jaw. Fast acting sedation flowed rapidly into Smokescreen's systems via a punctured med-line. The mech screamed once, a scream of fury and loss, the cry ringing out over the ruins of the base, then went still. 

Bumblebee stayed on his knees next to his friend. "He came running... he knew... must've been somewhere else, in shock. Then..." 

Ratchet nodded. "He knew already. It would have been delayed shock, that's why he wasn't here earlier. Without a doubt, at first he was rejecting what his spark was telling him. Not wanting to believe..." His optics scanned the sorrowful small groups of Autobots standing around, then back down to Smokescreen's motionless form, one hand reaching out to rest over the top of Smokescreen's chest, feeling the weak spark pulses. "Let's get him to medbay. Don't know wether we can save him or not." He paused. "Or if he wants to be." He heaved a sigh. "I'll sort out Bluestreak's body, and cover up his injuries. Smokescreen can see him and say his goodbyes later, if he is still sane."

_**Bumblebee's quarters...**_

Marin turned over the stubby blaster in her hands, cradling the weapon in her lap. She looked at Sam, "Why haven't we heard anything yet?" 

The boy kept staring up to the ceiling. Bumblebee's quarters were on one of the base's lower levels. He could not hear laserfire. Or fighting. It was quiet. 

Sitting next to the femme on Bumblebee's recharge platform, Sam pursed his lips and stared up at the ceiling. "Don't know. I don't hear any explosions or screaming, but then, we are pretty far down." It wasn't like he knew anything about fighting. He'd only been in a few fights with the Autobots and doing in Megatron didn't make him an experienced soldier. The boy eyed the gun being timidly held in Marin's hands. "Have you used one of those before?" 

The femme's optics dulled, looking down, "Yes. Not very well, though. Just standard training on the target range... which I failed." Her fingers touched the barrel of the gun. "I was supposed to do the course again. I didn't, I kept ignoring my reminders. I don't like shooting." 

"Oh." Sam felt his insides tighten. Whoops. Well, he couldn't say he was any better off. He'd fired Captain Lennox's pistol twice. He hadn't hit anything either. 

It was another hour before Sam got antsy. He was about to open the door and start finding answers, despite Marin insisting that he shouldn't, when he heard the multiple locks on the door disengaging. Sam tensed, moving behind Marin's slender chassis. 

"It's alright, it's Bumblebee," Marin stood up, carefully placing her gun down where she had been sitting. 

"How do you...? Is this a spark thing, or, uh, nevermind." Sam slid down to the floor before Marin could scoop him up. He looked up at his best friend. Bumblebee stood in the doorway. Normally, Bee's face was full of expression. The many ridges and moving plates of his face showing excitement, amusement, humor, or happiness. His expression was... dead. Nothing. Absolutely blank. 

Just like after Jazz had died. 

"Bee?" Marin stood close to him, looking up into his face. The mech was disgustingly dirty. Ash, dirt and particles from Primus-knew-what were stuck all over his armor. 

"Bumblebee? You okay? What was the explosion? 'Cons?" Sam put one hand on his friends lower leg, ignoring the filth. The mech didn't appear injured. 

The Camaro's shoulders twitched, the doors on his back flexing. His optics avoided looking at either of them. "It was a bomb. Took out the East wing, and Ratchet's quarters, among others. No Decepticons anywhere." His optics finally looked sadly down at a concerned Marin. "Bluestreak is dead." 

The metallic plates of Marin's face widened in shock and sorrow. "Oh no... no..." She leaned forward, her forehead rested on Bee's lower chest, hands clutching at his armor. A choking sound came from her vocaliser. Her hands trembled. 

Bumblebee laid one hand on each of her shoulders sympathetically. His grief wasn't so outwardly obvious. He'd been through enough of it to not visibly react so badly. Bluestreak had been a common visitor to the Admin offices. He was a relentless talker. Anytime he got Marin to himself at the counter, he loved to chat enthusiastically. Marin often had to hurry him along so others waiting in line could be served too. A nice-looking, if slightly goofy, mech. 

"Bluestreak?" Sam winced. "The one that looks like Prowl but is a lot nicer? Talks too much?" he smiled wryly, "Spins his gun in one hand and then drops it?" 

Bumblebee looked down at him over Marins's back. "Yes. It appeared... instant. Smokescreen is in medbay. Ratchet isn't sure if he can be saved. I hope so." 

"Smokescreen? Was he hit too?" 

"No, Sam. He and Bluestreak were bonded."

"Oh. Right." Sam poked through his memories. The Autobots weren't all that public with their affections, but he did remember Smokescreen and Bluestreak hanging out a lot together. Bee had said something about them being 'together'. Sam hadn't really wanted to know TOO much about that. He had enough trouble with female/male relationships, he didn't have time to work on understanding male/male things; not that he was against them or anything. He looked back up, "That spark thing you told me about?" 

"Yes. Sparkmates." 

"Geez. I'm sorry. That's awful. God..." He scrunched up his toes in his sneakers, rocking on his feet, eyes looking aimlessly all over the floor; trying not to let tears fall. "Damn, man." He started walking, going back and forth, walking around Bee and Marin, his hands gesturing. "We're gonna get them, right? Whoever did this. And we'll help Smokescreen." He stopped. Glistening human eyes stared straight up at Bumblebee's dulled optics, "Yeah?" 

A ghost of a smile flickered over Bumblebee's face, he echoed Sam's tone and wording, "...Yeah." 

Sam was bunkered down that night in the human area of the base, not far from Bumblebee's quarters. Optimus had been concerned enough to order most of the humans to leave the base, Sam included. The boy would not be moved. He had intended to stay in Bee's quarters, like he used to, but he realised that Marin was there... just a bit awkward to sleep with a Transformer couple next to you, best friends or not. 

... and grief was private. 

Bumblebee had returned to the bombsite. The clean-up and search for clues went on through the night in shifts. The entire base was on alert. Visibly armed mech's patrolled every sector, faces grim, sparks heavy. The human media were determined to cover the aftermath, but were kept at a distance by unmovable emotionless Army guards. The hard-asses from the defunct Sector Seven would've been useful. 

He returned to his quarters close to dawn. Tired. Angry. 

Marin looked up when the door opened once more. Her recharge programs had stuttered and faltered, only letting her rest in short phases. She felt like she hadn't recharged at all. "Bumblebee?" 

Uncharacteristically, the yellow mech closed the door, took a few steps, and sat down on the recharge platform with a thump of his aft. "The bomb was of Decepticon manufacture." 

Marin's optic ridges rose up, "Really?" She rested her hand on his forearm. 

The exhausted warrior shook his head, "There are only two Decepticons on Earth – that we know of – Barricade, and Frenzy. The Earth authorities have co-operated by putting out an alert on them. I don't understand it." The mech cocked his head, "Well, no, I sort of do. Of course they want to de-activate us, and a bomb is more effective than a rifle." Bumblebee didn't look at her. His unfocused optics stared at the wall in front of them. He sighed. His hands sat in a jumble in his lap. Marin's fingers softly stroked the inside of his forearm. 

"But... why? Why?" He shuddered, hunching over. Marin wasn't feeling so great herself. She snuggled one arm around his back and put the other on his chest. Offering comfort. 

Bumblebee had known thousands of mech's and femme's who had perished during the ages-long war. Many of them far closer friends than Bluestreak had been. Bluestreak's death had even been very quick - no suffering - he wouldn't have known what was happening. 

He always took it hard when someone was lost. He vaguely thought that this was hitting harder since he had someone; Marin; to sit with him and offer personal comfort, and she wasn't another mech who would judge him as not fit for duty if he broke down and questioned himself about what had happened, and what he could've done better. And the Autobot's HAD been in a period where they expected that their new life on Earth would be trouble-free and painless, after Megatron had been disposed of. 

That illusion had been blown up at the same time the base was. 

Bumblebee became puzzled when his spark jumped in his chest. It had been heavy and listless in his chest all night. Now it was quivering, and sending small sparks of energy out towards where Marin's hand was laying. He shifted uneasily. 

Marin's head lifted. Bumblebee's chest armor was becoming hot where her hand was sitting. She let her hand drop to his broad thigh. 

Bumblebee flinched; but not with pain; when his spark did a downwards dive in its casing and attempted to follow Marin's hand. "Uh... Marin?"

"Yes?" she looked up at him, touching a finger to his cheek. 

His spark now jerked upwards. He groaned. Now was not the time for interfacing and spark-merging! That was the _last_ thing hew felt like doing! His spark was crazy! A demanding freak!

Marin began to open her mouthplates to ask what was wrong when _her_ spark flared in her chest. She went stiff, putting one small hand to her chestplates. "O-oh... hey..." Her spark began to thump rhythmic pulses in its casing. 

Bumblebee gave his own chest a strange look. "My spark wants to, umm... you know. But I'm not doing anything, I don't need to, or want to, right now," he tried to explain to her how he felt, the frustration seeping out. "Bluestreak is, is... this isn't a good time!" 

Marin's brow ridges furrowed. "I have heard about spark's demanding to join with another's when placed under great stress. I have never experienced it though..."

"I've been under LOTS of stress, many times, – my spark hasn't done this before," Bumblebee poked at his own chestplates, not impressed. It would be so wrong to spark-merge when one of their friends had just died a violent death. 

"Maybe... maybe if we just hold each other close they'll settle down?" Marin asked uncertainly. 

"I won't say no to that." Bumblebee easily lifted Marin over onto his lap. 

The femme huddled into his chestplates, her thighs drawn up against his lower abdomen while her arms and head burrowed against his upper body, her partner's arms coming up tightly around her. She thought she heard him give a small sharply-cut-off sob, but couldn't be sure. 

"Bee... are you-"

Her words turned into a scream when another crippling explosion shook the base – this one bigger than the one they had endured hours earlier. The recharge platform bucked underneath them from the un-steady floor, vibrating at an incredible rate. The yellow mech toppled over onto his back, clutching his femme with a death grip and just barely managing to stay on the berth. Bumblebee's optics widened in horror when the ceiling of his quarters cracked and vibrated – threatening to collapse inwards. 

"Oh no... please Primus, _NO_..." 

Maybe praying worked, since the groaning and buckling of the base structure around them slowed to a halt. Both bots stared at each other. Marin's optics technically had a smaller diameter, but they were wider than her mech's. Whooping alarms shrieked through the hallways outside their door. 

"Again? AGAIN?!" Marin's voice started to rise with panic. She clung to him as he slid off the berth. 

"Marin! Calm down! We have to leave!" Banging on the button to open his door, Bumblebee winced when the door hydraulics whined and failed to pull back the warped heavy metal. Setting the femme aside, he forced his fingers through the metal on one side of the door and tore the thing right off its tracks with a grunt. 

Marin blinked at such a display of strength. She'd never really thought how strong he was. 

"C'mon! We're outta here!" He tugged at her hand. She ran with him, staying close to his side as best she could amid the jumble of other mech's and femme's heading for the exits. Once they were outside, the location of the second explosion and its aftermath was clear. 

Bumblebee froze. Some femme's were sobbing. Mech's were cursing. 

The explosion this time had taken out the Command Centre... and with it, the Senior Executive Officers quarters. Optimus Prime's apartment had been obliterated, it had been located one level down from the CC. There was nothing left to see but smoke and melted black metal where the building had once been proudly standing. 

"But... but... Optimus..." Bumblebee couldn't think. His CPU was frozen. Usually by about now in an emergency the Autobot Leader's commands were leaping out of everyone's comlinks. 

Optimus had headed to his apartment for some quick recharge after working for most of the night, at the same time as Bumblebee had only an hour earlier... Bee assumed Elita One had already been there as well. 

"Optimus? Are you okay?" Bumblebee spoke into his comlink. His arm trembled. "...Optimus?" His optics dimmed and he switched channels. "Elita? What's happening?" 

No response. 

No terse commands, no reassurances. 

"Optimus, please..." Bumblebee's scratchy voice began to crack. "Please...?"

Marin had her hands over her head. She moaned. 

Bumblebee's comlink stayed silent. There wasn't even the static crackle of a broken communicator...


	12. Chapter 12

**Birds and Bumblebees**

**Chapter 12**

_**Earth, Autobot Base, thirty-two minutes after the second explosion...**_

"Ugh..." Optimus Prime squinted at the bright light being shone in his widened optics. One of his hands raised up weakly to try and block it. He was lying on his front, half buried by tons of rubble that was compressing his legs and body – a mixed mess that used to be his base, and personal quarters.

"OVER HERE!" Hounds's scream of alert sent a shockwave of terror through the mech's searching the bomb site. "I've found Optimus! He's alive!"

The buried tortured mech couldn't keep his head up any longer and it sank back down. He barely registered the flurry of rescuers approaching his position in the breaking light of dawn.

"HOUND! MOVE!" Crawling along on hands and knees, Ratchet awkwardly shoved Hound aside, his own lights penetrating deeper into the hole his Leader was lying in. The CMO's optics took in the situation grimly. While pleased beyond measure to find Optimus alive, he wasn't sure what kind of condition he was in – and no one had yet been able to find Elita One. Ratchet positioned himself on his front, lying flat. He'd had to crawl several body lengths to reach Optimus' crowded position underneath the collapsed floor now lying atop their Commander. The medic was lying in a small compression situated slightly downhill from where Optimus was trapped.

Ironhide's booming voice demanded silence from the other bot's working on the bomb site. All work was halted. Only the creaking and moaning of the shifting debris beneath them could be heard.

"Optimus? It's Ratchet," Ratchet's voice was gentle. "If you can, give me an injury rundown, keep it short."

Apart from some groans and flickering optics, Prime didn't respond. Reaching out, Ratchet put a hand to his friends cheekplates; only Prime's head, shoulders, and one arm were free of entombment. "Optimus? Can you hear me?"

No response but a moan of pain and the twitch of one hand. The mech was conscious but not coherent or aware.

Grimly, Ratchet managed to carefully and slowly pull Prime's free hand forwards a few careful inches, apologising to his patient when Optimus cried out in pain. Swiftly, the medic turned over the hand as best he could, opened a port inside the mech's wrist, inserted a medprobe, and began receiving a preliminary damage report from Prime's own monitoring system.

"Frag it..." Ratchet cursed, fear swelling around his spark. The report was not good. Multiple endoskeletal fractures, crushed internal systems, burns, melted wiring, critical energon leaks, slowed spark-rate; the list went on and on. Using another port on the wrist, he sent pain relieving medication and an infusion of low-grade energon flowing down a line from his arm to Optimus'.

"Ratchet, can you get him out? The debris could all come tumbling down at any second." Prowl's voice came through over Ratchet's comlink as calm and to-the-point as ever.

"There's no way we're pulling him out. He's almost completely crushed here. The wreckage has to come off." Ratchet was blunt. "I need; WHOAH!!"

The surface the mech's were crowded upon groaned and shifted dramatically with screeching metal. The debris was moving. Ratchet and Hound pressed themselves to the floor, horrified. There was the remains of three floors compressed like waffles above their heads. Ratchet pulled himself closer to Optimus and shielded his head desperately with his own. Cries of horror went up from the Autobots waiting outside. It wouldn't take much for the steel and concrete to compress the trapped occupants to dust...

"Hound! Hound, get out! You don't have to stay here!" Ratchet urged, when things began to die down.

"I'm staying. We all get out or we all don't," Hound's hard optics bore into Ratchet's.

The wreckage moved again with a long groan and Hound switched off his optics, head down, praying to Primus. Dust and soot drifted down onto their bodies. Their small space compressed further around them. They could hear the creaking and bending of Optimus Prime's formidable armor.

When silence reigned again and nothing else moved, Ratchet relaxed his grip on Optimus. That's when he heard it. A tiny female cry of distress. Hound and Ratchet glanced at each other with terrified yet hopeful optics.

"Elita?" Ratchet ventured, waiting for an answer. He couldn't see where another body might fit in here. He and Hound remained motionless, alert for any other sound. Just when they were about to give up, it came again. A weak cry of pain and misery.

"Elita?!" Ratchet extracted a torchlight from his hip compartment and shone it in the direction of the cry, just to the right of where Optimus was lying. The debris had compacted so tightly he couldn't see how any bot could be alive in there.

Hound's optics widened. He snatched the torch from Ratchet and pointed it into a miniscule space just underneath Optimus Prime's chest. The faint flash of rose red paint in the light announced itself to them.

"Oh my God..." Ratchet whispered. Wriggling his body around, the medic took back his torch and manipulated his body to see at an angle between Prime's constricted arm caught underneath his body and his chest. He couldn't make out what body part he was looking at, but no other femme had that color paint. The gap he was looking through was far too small for his hand to fit through. He couldn't even touch her.

Elita One was lying underneath her sparkmate. Prime's larger body was protecting hers. He was the only thing keeping her from being crushed into nothing.

"Primus!" Ratchet whispered harshly, "I can't reach her!" He kept trying to see at a better angle but it was hopeless. "Elita! We're here! We'll get you out!"

A weak whimper came back at him.

"Prowl! I've got Elita here! She's underneath Optimus! Get this shit moved off them ASAP!" Ratchet checked over Prime again. He was no longer conscious. His systems were shutting down one by one. His spark would be the last to go...

Prowl's strained voice came back at them over the comlink, "We're doing the best we can, Ratchet. Keep us up-dated." The second-in-command dropped his arm down. His head turned slightly to speak to those around him. "Elita is alive and underneath Optimus."

"Oh Jesus..." Sam Witwicky put his face in his hands. They were buried alive in there. The human quarters were on the other side of the base, they hadn't taken any damage. He'd evacuated with the few human's determined to remain on the base.

"Ironhide!" Prowl turned and demanded the Weapons Specialist's attention. He got it. "I need everyone working on the section where Ratchet's beacon is emitting. Keep it from collapsing any further. I'll see about getting us some heavy lifting equipment."

Ironhide went from snapping to attention to barking orders at the bots waiting on his decisions. "I want all hands working on this! When the call for silence goes out, cease movement! Work in teams, do small sections together – MOVE IT!!"

Larger and stronger mech's immediately set about lifting wide sections of debris while smaller bots ran around the edges and stabilised the wreck. The load on the trapped bots was getting lighter piece-by-piece, but there was a long way to go.

Captain Lennox rapped his hand on Prowl's leg. The mech looked down sharply at the human. "You want lifting equipment? Consider it done."

Prowl's optics studied the human as he rushed off. "Thank you, Captain."

With a curt nod, Lennox got out his phone and annoyed the SecDef for some urgent help, and motioned a distressed Bumblebee to his side at the same time.

Back beneath the rubble, Ratchet and Hound lay and waited for some significant lightening of the weight above their heads. Elita would let out soft moans, but since Ratchet had no way of reaching her, there was nothing he could do about whatever injuries she had or the pain she was in. His words were her comfort. And hope.

"Elita, we're here, we're not going anywhere. We'll get you out, don't worry," Ratchet kept up the smooth caring chat. Hound waited at his side. The forest green ranger had awkwardly moved his chest lights to his shoulders with some judicious armor re-arranging, allowing more light to penetrate the cavity occupied by the trapped mech and femme.

The other Autobots had attempted to reach their position to lend Ratchet some aid with supplies, but the debris had begun shifting so much again, that Ironhide called them off. Any attempt to use helicopters or jets to lift off the bigger junk on top of Optimus meant a downdraft that would cause the debris to shift and compress. The work had to be done by hand – and carefully.

"Ratch... how is he?" Hound murmured quietly, indicating Optimus with a twitch of his optics.

The CMO was silent for a second, then his words came softly, "Not good. We have to get him out. He's bleeding energon badly from somewhere, I'm barely keeping up with replacing it." His optics dimmed. "Things are not... going well."

"Uh huh." Hound's optics roved over their unstable ceiling. "No need to tell me that twice."

There was awkward silence.

"Thank you for staying." Ratchet's voice was low. He kept his optics on Optimus.

"No problem. 'Ain't got no other urgent place to be." Hound's reply was light. "It's hot in here."

"Mmm. Heat. From the explosion." Ratchet peered through the small gap at Elita again, flashing his torchlight. "Elita? Still with us?"

Silence.

"Elita?"

"Ratchet!" Hound hissed, grabbing at Ratchet's shoulder. He pointed at a thin sticky stream of energon coming out from underneath Optimus Prime's chest and beginning to run past them.

Ratchet jerked. "Oh no..." He inspected the stream as closely as he could, getting his optics in close to Prime's head. He pulled back, muttering, "...don't think that's from Optimus." With quick fingers and cramped movements, he took a sample and popped it into a small analyser he extracted from his wrist. He grimaced, his optics dimming in pain. "It's Elita's."

"_What_!" Hound gasped. "No! No, no, no!"

"Prowl, we're outta time here! Get us out NOW!" Ratchet yelled into his comlink, "Or you'll be pulling out dead bots!"

Prowl cursed. His optics focused through wisps of smoke onto Ironhide's broad back a few lengths away. "IRONHIDE! Ratchet says move it!"

"DON'T YOU THINK I _KNOW_ THAT!" Ironhide bellowed back, dragging huge chunks of debris and throwing aside wreckage like a mech possessed.

Prowl growled, raising his arm communicator, "Ratchet, give me details, what's happening."

"Optimus is fading," Ratchet leant his forehead on one fist, his facial features pained, "Elita is no longer responding to out calls, and she's beginning to bleed everywhere." He and Hound were lying in a gathering pool of energon, the blue luminescent liquid turning crusty brown underneath them.

Prowl looked around frantically. Every available mech and femme were working, there was nothing else they could do. Then he heard it. He spun around, looking into the distance, something huge was coming down the freeway. His optics locked onto it, "_Primus_..."

An enormous heavy-lifting crane was being towed down the freeway by a yellow Camaro. The crane wasn't able to drive fast enough on it's own, so the yellow Autobot had hitched himself to it and was burning out his engine to put more speed into it by pulling. Prowl could've sworn the crane was hitting twice it's usual cruising speed. The Smart car form of the femme Marin was zipping along in front, clearing away traffic for the behemoth behind her, her lights flashing frantically. Prowl could just see Captain Lennox hanging outside Marin's window, yelling and waving his arm. Human Police cars with wailing sirens brought up the rear.

"YES!" Prowl punched the air, then waved his arms over his head frantically. "IRONHIDE!"

"I see it," the black mech growled, then turned and began shouting, "Make room, clear the way! Get that crane as close as you can! MOVE LIKE YOU MEAN IT!" Mech's ran in all directions, shoving aside debris and clearing a road right up to the main mess where Optimus and Elita were trapped.

"Ratchet! We've got a crane! You'll be out soon!" Prowl shouted into his comlink above the roar of Bumblebee's engine and the crane behind him. Detaching from the crane, Bumblebee pulled over to the side and transformed, collapsing onto the ground weakly, his body heaving. His chest was smoking, burnt energon dripping from crevices in his armor. Marin hugged him from behind, crying.

It didn't take long for the mammoth crane to ram its supports into the ground, rear it's long neck into the sky, and drop cables down onto the pile of mess. Bots hurried to make attachments for the cables to grip. A human operator manipulated the controls, sweat running down his face as his feet pumped the pedals and his hands jerked the levers. Piece by giant piece, large swathes of the destroyed base were lifted up, swung clear, and dumped onto open ground.

When only one large piece was left, Ironhide forced his way in, shoving the piece being carried by the crane out of the way with an obnoxious push...

...to reveal the crushed burnt bodies of Optimus Prime and Elita One in the bright morning sunlight.


	13. Chapter 13

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: ARGH! This is HARD, frag it! Difficult! This is also a wee bit hurried. I was trying to rush this out just as I pictured it in my head. Please forgive a few mistakes here and there.

**Chapter 13**

The sight was shocking. Optimus Prime's body was squeezed and bent into an un-natural position over that of Elita One, like a crushed toy solider. The rose-red femme was huddled up against the thighs and hips of her mate in a tucked ball position, a long stream of energon running from her chestplates that had burst open under pressure, leaving a long gaping gash in the side of her chest. Her chassis had been twisted out of shape, but she wasn't as badly crushed as her mate. The mech had protected her as best he could, but even his best effort has placed pressure on her from his own physique.

Prime's own chest was squashed fully one third of its width. His spark casing was under enormous pressure; it was sparking abnormally, throbbing and pulsing with no even rhythm. There wasn't one piece of metal on his body that hadn't been bent and twisted out of shape in some way. Only his shoulders and head were relatively untouched compared to the worst parts of him. His left leg had been partially torn from its hip joint, the thigh crushed, the knee torn open, although his right leg had fared better – just the foot and lower leg were crushed, the ankle flattened and inoperable.

Ironhide paused for a mere microsecond, his thick strong legs straddled over the mountain of debris while taking in the fragile and horrifying condition of his Commander and his mate. Ratchet's optics blinked up at his own in the sudden bright light. The pain in them wasn't lost on Ironhide. With a growl, he forced himself to keep moving. The task of removing the debris around the couple wasn't finished, they needed a clear path for the bots to be evacuated from. His hands trembled as they grabbed wreckage and threw it aside without his usual vigour, and his own spark pulsed under the additional weight of Chromia's misery flooding his spark through their bond. He wanted to sink down to his knees and wail like a sparkling...

"Hound, help me!" Ratchet positioned himself at Optimus Prime's head, holding the front of the near-stasis locked mech. "Grab his legs!"

Hound scrambled to the other side of his Leader, choking back his horror at the injuries revealed by the lifting of the weight atop of Optimus. He wanted to throw up whatever was in his holding tanks. It was sickening. Sheer torture. To think that the mech had been awake to feel most of it before he lost consciousness...

"HOUND!"

"I'm moving..." Hound clamped his jaw shut and took a deep pull through his air intakes to keep his tanks from ejecting while sliding gentle hands around Prime's mid-section.

"Ready, take it gently, we need him on his back." With gentle but firm hands, they positioned Optimus onto his back – nevermind his broken limbs sticking out at odd angles. The Leader's optics stared blankly into the sky above them – dark and unreactive.

Ratchet felt a pat on his shoulder. He spared a sideways glance.

"I've got Elita..." First Aid said quietly as he thrust his way past, his CPU assessing the condition of the femme with experienced optics.

The other Autobots were tentatively gathering around the base of the debris pile. Every single face was taut and distressed. That was their Leader up there...

Sam, Will Lennox, Chromia and Arcee were helping Bumblebee. The yellow bot had been trying to limp and drag himself to Optimus' position – Marin hanging onto him and telling him to wait while Sam thumped his fists on his Guardians leg and yelled at him to stay still or he'd do more damage. Bee required some serious help himself, but since the two resident medics were already occupied, he sat on the ground with his legs sprawled out in front him, a selection of worried femmes on either side.

First Aid quickly examined Elita One before taking any other action. Primus. She wasn't too badly off, but he had to stop that leak from her chest. He subspaced emergency medpads into one hand to soak up fluids so he could see what was going on while feeling his way around her chest cavity with his other, sealing off small bleeders with a laser and performing blocks and makeshift connections on the bigger ones; he was quick and rough, but she wasn't awake to feel it. He could hear Ratchet cursing and growling behind him. Elita was bad, but Optimus was worse...

"Frag, frag, frag," Ratchet's non-stop cursing was rattling Hound. The ranger had to turn his head away from his shattered Commander to keep his cool while still keeping Optimus stable enough for the medic to work on. Hound had never been good at dealing with injuries close-up.

"Get him outta here, Ratch!" Ironhide demanded, looming behind the CMO. "You can't work here!"

Ratchet ignored him, his hands busy in Prime's throat area and upper chest.

"RATCHET!"

"HIS SPARK IS GOING OUT! I can't move him!" Ratchet cursed again, his hands tugging and feeling their way around Prime's cracked and warped spark casing. There wasn't much point in making new connections – his energon stream had slowed to a crawl. "I need more room in here - IRONHIDE! Grab the left chestplate!"

The Weapons Specialist slid and scrambled his way over to the opposite side of Optimus. "Grab what?!"

"HERE!" Ratchet jabbed at Prime's half open and bent chestplate. "Wrench it open! I don't care how!"

Ironhide didn't need telling twice. He planted his feet for grip, leant down, latched on with one hand, pressed the other to Prime's shoulder, and ripped off the chestplate. It dropped from his numb fingers.

Now having the room he needed, Ratchet shoved his entire forearm down the left side of Prime's chest, gripping the spark casing and wrenching it back into shape by force. He then began furiously re-connecting some of the torn spark energon lines which surrounded the casing but it was too late – despite now having a resonant roomy sphere to function in once more, the abused spark inside stuttered, flared...

...and began to dim down to one tiny particle; to the point of being extinguished.

"NO! Don't you DARE go out on me, you pit-spawned relic!" Ratchet placed his hand over the casing. His hand and wrist transformed backwards with a loud whine, forming a plug shaped attachment that the medic thrust into the side of Prime's spark casing with a thunk. "HOUND! Hands off!"

"But..."

"OFF!"

Ironhide shoved the stunned ranger to one side. He'd seen this before. "Clear!"

The other Autobots standing in tearful groups around the rescue site watched in terror as an optic-burning white flash brighter than sunlight bathed the scene. Ratchet was trying to bring back Optimus Prime's dying spark.

"NOOO! Optimus! NO!" Bumblebee's frenzied screaming shocked those around him. Marin sat on his chest to keep him down while Arcee grabbed his shoulders. "NO! No!" He curled up on the ground, sending Marin tumbling head over heels.

Half-way up the small mountain, Prowl was absolutely still. Arms limp at his sides. Staring. Not believing what he was seeing. No one could kill Optimus... no one. And now he was going to be done in by a collapsed building?!

Ironhide turned away, bent over. His hands covered his face. He heard Chromia scream for him.

Leaning over the fragile Optimus Prime, Ratchet's optics were frenzied and desperate. He waited a few more seconds to see if the spark would flare from the energy shock – or blink out altogether. A few tendrils of energy probed out, then the spark faded once more. The CMO didn't hesitate – he charged up Prime's spark again with another bright flash.

Chromia clawed and scrambled her way up the hill to her bonded, grabbing onto one of his legs as a handhold. He couldn't look at her. Instead he grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her up to hold against his chest. He buried his face in her shoulder.

"Optimus...?" Elita's trembling voice was barely audible.

First Aid stared down at her in shock. Of course. The havoc of her beloved's spark would be resonating with hers as well. Her chest was split open and full of hurriedly patched up energon lines, medpads, and what must be a horribly painful spark, but she was still kicking.

Elita's head was turned to the side to stare at her mate laid out on the unstable ground behind First Aid. Her optics glowed faintly. Her hand clawed at the ground and she tried to drag herself closer. "...Optimus..."

First Aid restrained her gently. "No, Elita, stay still."

Ratchet narrowed his optics dangerously down at his patient and he growled. "Come back here, slag it! You're not leaving us like this! I'll drag your under-sized aft out of the Matrix just to kick it back-"

His words were cut-off as Optimus Prime's optics lit up weakly. His spark flared and began to pulse once more. A long cry of pain emitted from him and his back arched feebly. The mech's great beaten body shuddered.

"Now that's more like it!" Ratchet grinned, feeling faint with relief. He inspected the warmly glowing exposed spark in Prime's chest. Yep. Much better. He looked down into Optimus' pain-filled confused optics. "Hang in there, stay with me," his hands delicately soldered up some stray energon lines, and then administered some pain meds while neatly covering his chest with the plate Ironhide had dropped and taping in place. It would do for the moment. Now to get him to the medbay... not easy with such a huge mech.

"...Optimus...?"

Ratchet lifted his head from studying his patient to come face-to-face with Elita One. She was leaning on First Aid and staring down at her mate. He looked... _terrible_. She'd never seen him this damaged. Broken. And he'd been protecting HER.

Prime's optics flared at seeing her. He tried to speak but coughed and groaned instead, his body twitching. Elita tugged at First Aid. The assistant medic didn't have the spark to deny her – even though time was crucial to get the badly injured Autobot Leader into the medbay – and he helped lower her to kneel at her mech's side. She crouched down gingerly. And then; hissing slightly in pain from her own chest wound; she dropped her head down and touched her forehead to his.

Prime's left hand tried to lift up to touch her but couldn't make it. Ratchet gave in. He lifted it, put Elita's slender hand inside it, and squeezed Prime's finger's over it. The femme squeezed back.

"I felt you go... wasn't going... to let you. _Never_." Elita's words were soft, and she rubbed her face ever so gently against his. Ratchet and First Aid felt like they were intruding.

A chorus of happy yells, car horns, whooping, a few 'Woots' and clapping broke out from down below.

"Whoa, FA, she's got a bleeder," Ratchet pointed a stiff finger at Elita's side. Bending over had opened her wounds again. She was dripping energon down her legs. Not that she cared. "Let's get these two inside, yes?"

"Yes Sir," First Aid obeyed his boss, lifting a limp Elita up off Optimus. Prime's optics stayed fixated on her as the medic carefully sat her down and began soldering off the bleeding lines in her chest. Elita's head drooped wearily, her optics dimming down.

Ratchet taped a finger on Prime's cheek. The wounded mech shifted his gaze awkwardly to the concerned doctor. "I'm glad you stayed with us. Damn youngling, always causing me trouble. And now we have to get your misshapen aft down this rubbish pile, eh?"

Optimus blinked his optics up at the doc, smiled faintly and drifted off-line as Ratchet pumped some strong sedatives into his patient via another medline. His spark was staying strong. Now he just had to make it through a couple of days worth of surgery and several Earth weeks of recovery.

For the delicate trip out of the bomb site, it took the combined efforts of Ratchet, Ironhide, Prowl and First Aid to get him down. They attached a stretcher to the four cables of the crane and carefully arranged the broken mech upon it, then guided the precious cargo down to the ground, where he was rushed to medbay, following on the tail of Elita who had been taken down first, being carried with great responsibility by First Aid. Chromia and Arcee followed at his heels, intent on looking after the stricken Femme Commander – and their best friend.

"Bumblebee?" Sunstreaker said softly, crouching next to the exhausted Camaro, placing a careful hand on the mech's shoulder. "We need to get you to medbay."

Sideswipe stared at his Twin in shock. Whoa. Sunny being _caring_?

Half-sitting up, Bumblebee coughed, bringing up burnt fluids. Marin winced, putting a gentle hand to his chest. He watched the body of Optimus being rushed away to the medical centre. His optics blinked and looked up at the yellow Lamborghini's, "T-thanks.."

With each Twin taking one side, and Marin scampering along beside them with Sam in her cupped hands, the hero-of-the-day (apart from number one hero; Ratchet) was helped to the medbay to be assessed and fussed over by the technicians (most of whom took one look at his harshly burnt out, cracked and overloaded engine and felt like fainting).

There was another set of optics that had watched the whole drama with a scathing expression full of hatred.

"He lives."

"Y-y-yeahYeahYeah! Told-told-told you! C-c-can't killkillkill HIM!"

"Neh." The optics turned deep purple, glittering. "We will and we can."

Frenzy's head bobbed erratically, "YEAH!" The small bot followed after the bigger Decepticon with skipping footsteps. "You're funfunfunfun!"

"Fun." The big mech paused suddenly, causing Frenzy to collide with his ankles and shriek. "Fun is for femmes."

"Femmes-femmes-femmes are FOR funfunfun!"

"Shut up, Frenzy."


	14. Chapter 14

**Birds and Bumblebees**

**Authors Note: **I am such a moron! WiccanWitch constructed a gorgeous photo of what Bumblebee and Marin would look like together in real life, using a Movie photo of Bee, and Arcee's photo re-done in blue colors. You can see it on her page at;

tamarad./art/Marin-And-Bumblebee-91022976

(I'll also put the link on my FFN profile page, since FFN is cutting out the entire link - you need to insert WWW infront of the above link to make it work)

And while I'm at it, I will be wrapping up this fanfic in the next chapter (or possibly two). The plot line is at its end, and I'm losing the motivation to continue with it. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and offered encouragement, you guys keep me going! Thanks!

**Chapter 14**

It wasn't possible for Ratchet's faceplates to turn red from over-exertion and frustration, but he was getting close to it, "TAKE IT EASY! He's not a scrapped reject yet! Easy! Slide him! That's it... STOP!"

Optimus Prime's massive broken body was placed on Ratchet's hurriedly prepared and extended medtable. He had been carried on a makeshift stretcher by him, Ironhide, Prowl and First Aid, carried down from the mountain of rubble and debris he and his sparkmate had been entombed by. The Autobot Commander's body was tragically twisted and broken. The CMO was rushing around gathering up supplies, barking orders at assistant techs, and keeping one optic on the frail form of Elita One. The femme had been laid upon the next nearest medtable (if they'd taken her any further away from her incapacitated bondmate, she'd be dragging herself off of it) and was being tended by a caring and concerned First Aid. She was conscious and watching every move anyone made around her mech.

"Optimus? Can you hear me? Prime, say something, make a sound if you can hear me." Ratchet had pushed the others aside and was leaning over close to the faceplate of his Leader. He'd grasped Optimus' jawplate and was holding it tenderly, directing his silent face towards his.

The most quiet, drawn out, moan of misery came from the battered mech.

Ratchet brightened, "That's the spirit! Stay with us for just a little longer, alright?"

A higher-pitched groan issued forth from Optimus.

"Good, good, I need to check a few things before I send you under for the major repair work. Most importantly, some higher processor functions need assessing. I'm going to strengthen your pain meds so you'll be more comfortable. This won't hurt, but you'll feel me touching inside your head, so hang in there." His hand patted Prime's nearest cheekplate (one of the few parts of the mech not roughed up or broken by his horrific ordeal).

Ratchet felt awful for having to subject Optimus to more discomfort, but it was necessary, for if any of Prime's CPU capacity had been damaged or impaired, he needed to know about it _now_, not later. Failing CPU capabilities would stop his body from accessing newly repaired systems. A perfect body with a malfunctioning control box.

Standing back against the medbay wall with the others, hands hanging by his sides in despair, Ironhide let his optics run over Optimus' shattered physique. "... how the slag is Ratch going to _repair_ him?" the black mech muttered, disturbed.

"...he will..."

Ironhide's head turned at the softly spoken female words. Elita was having her own serious injuries tended to by First Aid, but she had her head propped to the side towards Optimus. Staring at him. Her spark feared that if she stopped looking, he'd fade away from her again, beyond her reach.

Standing up straighter on his wide feet, his chest arching outwards, Ironhide nodded, granting Elita a warm smile. If she could muster up the energy and will to say Optimus would be alright, so could he. "Yeah, he will. Ratch'll do it. We'll have the lugnut back on his feet and getting up our afts with orders quicker than ever."

Once he had checked the stabilisation of Prime's spark, Ratchet began conducting a some higher function tests on Prime's CPU. He'd removed the back pieces of the red and blue mech's helmet armor, and cleared out his access ports. A few incredibly thin probes were snaking into Optimus' legendary processor, sending back data and results to Ratchet, who was directly linked up to them through a port in his wrist. The medic watched intently as he catalogued the results on a vidscreen in front of him. Optimus made one barely audible whimper of discomfort, so small the medic wasn't sure if he'd heard it – having never heard Optimus _whimper _before - but Ratchet was on top of that with murmured words of reassurance and a gentle hand on his head.

Ironhide winced. Not a pretty or comfortable procedure to watch. The overhead lights harshly lit up the exposed and fragile areas of Optimus' inner skull workings. While the outside of his head armor was colorfully painted, the inside was shiny reflective silver, peeled back so that Ratchet could work. He noticed Elita's gaze waver. Better distract her from the icky stuff.

"Elita? Mind if I take over command of your femmes while you recover? They'll need someone to lead them. I can do it," he asked her with an outright smirk, leaning towards her. The female's response was quick and damning.

"As if! Keep your perverted ideas to yourself, slagger...!" Elita growled, coughing and hissing. If Ironhide believed he had a ready-made harem of adoring females to take over, he had another thing coming. A small trickle of brown energon leaked from the corner of her mouth. Alarmed, First Aid stopped his work and hurried to wipe it up while determining what energon line she'd busted through now.

"Ah, okay, I thought so. Another opportunity lost..." Ironhide waved her off, shrugging his shoulders. He jerked and looked around when something smacked him hard and clean between his shoulderplates.

"Don't you dare annoy her! She's hurt!" Getting up on her tip-toes, Marin waved a stiff finger up near Ironhide's face, reaching just under his chin. The mech tracked the offended finger back and forth with his optics. "I think you should leave! You're very rude!"

With his head jerked back in alarm so it looked like his neck had disappeared, Ironhide began backing up one step at a time. Wary of Bumblebee's fuming femme. "Uh, I, er, you know. I wouldn't... I mean..."

"STAY QUIET OR GET OUT!!" Ratchet bellowed, having paused his testing, looking furious.

Bumblebee's optics brightened. He was sitting on the other side of the medbay, perched on a medtable of his own, and had been watching Ratchet take care of Optimus with a great deal of distress.

He didn't care about his own injuries (even though the tech's had been pottering around him and whispering about removing his engine completely and replacing it; a major operation) he was worried about Optimus. His optics glowed with some warmth when Sunstreaker – standing behind his shoulder as some sort of honourable guard - scribbled a swift message on a datapad and held it out in front of his face. The Lambo didn't dare say a word after Ratchet's angry reprimand for quiet, but he could still write.

_IF YOU EVER BREAK UP WITH MARIN, MAY I DATE HER? SHE ROCKS!_

Bee's optics widened. He'd just managed to win Marin over and now Sunny wanted dibs on her?! He turned slightly and raised a hand to strike.

Sunstreaker yelped and rubbed his noseplates where Bumblebee had smacked them _hard_ with an open palm. "My sensors... my face! It's crooked!"

"Aft-hole!" Sideswipe whispered to his bro, having grabbed the datapad and read it to see what had irritated Bee. He gave the pad to Bee, who wiped off the message and cradled it in one hand.

Marin patted Bumblebee's shoulder with a smile. Her other hand found its way to fit snugly under his on the bench. He grasped it gratefully.

"Okay Optimus, time for some serious downtime," Ratchet removed his probes, satisfied with his readings. Everything inside there was good. "You will be off-line for at least one Earth week while we fix you up."

Treading the line between being conscious and unconscious, Optimus' optics flickered towards Elita. A static noise of concern came from his crumpled vocaliser. His body shuddered from the stress.

"She'll be fine. Elita will have the best care, and we'll have some mech's guarding her at all times."

"...I'm staying here, Optimus... let Ratchet work..." Elita's throaty but weak voice hit Prime's audios like a salve from Primus.

The great mech's optics dimmed and he relaxed. He couldn't do much else but give in. Ratchet smiled at him and sent him off-line, "I'll see you when you wake, and you'll be whole instead of looking like you got backed over by Unicron."

With Optimus quiet and unaware, and various support machines and monitors keeping him stable, Ratchet's shoulders sagged. His optics ran critically over the almost destroyed mech body laid out in front of him.

"You got an Optimus Prime repair manual with you somewhere? Or did you leave it back home?" Ironhide quipped, coming up behind the medic. "What a _job_."

"Please do not joke," Ratchet muttered. He rubbed at his forehead with a sigh. His hands spread out and leant on the bench before him, contemplating. "You're going to help me."

"_What_?! I don't do medic stuff!"

"Too late. I'll need your strength for some things. Prime's parts are tough, I'll need to strip out broken bits and use leverage to get new ones in." Ratchet had already downloaded the necessary information for Optimus Prime's transformation technicals from the mech's own processor, and he was working out how to approach such an overwhelming job.

It wasn't enough to 'repair' broken pieces. Every component, wire, and metallic overlay had to be machined and engineered to fit precisely. Once the critical internals of Optimus' chest and abdomen had been patched up and his self-repair diagnostics had begun distributing nano's to finish the job, only then could Ratchet start on the much bigger 'outside' operation. Replacing panels, struts, and armor.

"Rrrr. Fine. I'll help. But I'm engraving 'Ironhide Was Here' under his chest armor..." Ironhide stomped off to tell Chromia how Optimus was doing, and that he'd be 'busy' for a while as Ratchet's helper. He halted abruptly to allow a scurrying tech to go past him. The tech was shocked when a massive black hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him up. Ironhide grunted, studying the poor slim tech dangling from his fist, "They are scrawny little things, aren't they? Alright Ratch, I'll help ya."

Ironhide dropped the terrified tech with a grunt.

Elita One grabbed at First Aid's head and pulled him down to her level, her croaky voice whispering, "Don't let Ironhide scribble rude things on my mech, okay?"

On the other side of the crowded medbay, Marin had been watching what was happening with Elita and Optimus, but when the tech's began getting more insistent with her mech Bumblebee, she gave her full attention to him.

"C'mon, Bee, let them fix you, please?" A pleading Sideswipe was trying to help the tech's get the Camaro to agree to being taken offline for some critical repair work. Sunstreaker stood behind Sides, arms crossed over his wide chest, a frown on his handsome faceplates.

Bumblebee was shaking his head, mute. He wasn't going to leave Optimus without protection. No way. Stubborn to the last.

Marin tapped Sideswipe on the arm to get his attention. The red warrior angled his head to look down at her. "What do they need to do to him?" she asked politely, small face looking earnest.

"He needs most of his non-essential internals ripped out and replaced, like, engine, some transformation parts, melted couplings, distorted wiring," Sideswipe squinted, thinking, "the accelerator for his cannon was fried, that needs doing, too. See, he over-heated badly, and for far too long pulling that crane thing..." he trailed off at the shocked and sickened look on the femme's face. "Oh, I said too much didn't I?" Swipe said brightly.

"Yeah, anything else gory you want to add to that list, Bro'?" Sunstreaker hissed, yellow armor glowing. "Dumb aft, don't scare the femme! She's not into that stuff."

"Primus..." Marin grimaced and put her shaking hand on her mech's shoulder. She couldn't imagine EVER having to go through such extensive repair work. Wasn't he in pain? "Bee? Bee please, look at me."

Reluctantly, Bumblebee's bright baby blue optics turned down to look at her. He shook his head faintly, 'no'. They could do whatever they wanted to do while he was awake.

"Let the medics do what they have to do, you cannot stay awake for all this! You just can't! It's horrific!"

Bumblebee shrugged vaguely. He'd been through it before, so what. He could take it.

Ironhide had been watching the whole scenario, and decided to intervene. He couldn't stand long lovey-dovey moments. Marin smooching up to Bee to get him sedated was going to be so icky. The black mech snatched the sedative out of the hand of the tech waiting impatiently behind Bee, aimed, and plunged it into the gap in Bee's shoulder between his armor, flooding Bee's fuel lines with sedative.

A surprised Bumblebee crashed backwards onto the medberth in a sprawled heap, limbs hanging off the table edges. Completely under.

Ironhide grinned at a shocked Marin and open-mouthed Sideswipe. "What? He's out isn't he?" The mech handed the now empty compression syringe back to the appalled tech. "Here ya go. Job done." He turned to leave.

Marin was furious. "YOU GLITCH!"

She snatched the empty syringe out of the tech's hand (who now looked resigned to having things taken off him without asking) and drove it pointy end first into the first part of Ironhide at her level and available. His aft. It was amazing luck that she somehow got it right through the slim slit between his left and right aft armor, sinking it right into him.

"YeeooOOOWW!" Ironhide leapt into the air, grabbing at his rear end and spinning around. His hand tried to snatch it out, but it was buried deeply into his protoform. There wasn't enough of the handle showing for him to grasp. "FEMME! What the _slag_ did you do that for?!"

Pausing in his work over Optimus Prime's still body, Ratchet cocked an optic ridge at Ironhide flailing around and yelling curses. "It's empty Ironhide, or else you'd be drooling face first on the floor. Marin dear, would you like a position in the medbay as Ironhide's servicing tech? I think you handle him rather well."

Marin stood with her hands on her hips, growling at the Weapons Specialist. "Serves you right! And don't yell at me, you jabbed that into Bumblebee first!"

As one smooth unit, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe braced their shoulders menacingly and each took a step in front of Marin when Ironhide hissed and began to approach her, baring the angry mechs way. If Marin could shove Ironhide around, she was now graced with her own elite bodyguards. Permanently.

Ironhide snarled, hissed, and swore, swinging around and limping out of the medbay door awkwardly with his pelvis tilted at an odd angle. It hurt. Maybe Chromia could get it out. She'd help him after she stopped laughing.

Elita gathered the last of her failing energy to smile weakly at the angry little femme. "Marin, I'd love it if you would join the Femme Military Unit."

"She's mine, Lita. I want her in medical," Ratchet informed her, not lifting his head from tinkering with Optimus.

Going shy – remembering that she was really just an Admin assistant, and who was she to be talking with such famous and high-ranking bots – Marin ducked her head down and took a chair next to Bumblebee, holding his limp hand. Sitting quietly. Hey, if the only bright spot in this horrific day was getting two new job offers with higher pay, she'd learn to look on the bright side, just like her mech always did.


	15. Chapter 15

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: It has been a long struggle for this chapter. If it seems a little weird, it's because I dragged it out of my reluctant brain with sharp implements! Enjoy.

**Chapter 15**

**_Autobot Base medbay, early morning, four Earth days after the rescue of Optimus Prime and Elita One..._**

"No, no, no, take it easy, they said not to drink too much, just _sips_."

Marin got her hands around the energon receptacle and tried to slow down Bumblebee's fumbling attempts at trying to shove as much energon down his throat as possible. The tech's had taken him off the fuel-line drip this morning, and he was under medical orders to ingest small amounts of energon at regular intervals.

Bumblebee wasn't so good at following orders telling him not to do something when his weary systems were – naturally – screaming at him to down as much energon as he could steal, blackmail, or swipe. He carefully dislodged Marin's small grasping fingers and up-ended the cup in front of his mouth with determination. Energon sloshed over his chin and down his front.

"Bumblebee!! No! Primus..." Grimacing, Marin took the nearly empty cup back and set it down out of his reach on another table. The mech was still confined to his med berth, and wasn't about to jump off and grab at it. "I never thought you would disobey orders. Now look at you!"

The yellow mech blinked down at his stained front from his semi-reclining position. His optics brightened. A large grey finger scooped up a stray glob of energon and delivered it to his mouthplates. The grill he normally wore over his mouth (which also helped greatly with his mangled vocal modulator) had been temporarily removed. He couldn't speak but he could drink. Marin thought about putting it back on.

Knowing he was upsetting his femme, Bumblebee put on his best adorable sad expression to try and appease her frustration.

Walking past, Ratchet smacked him in the back of the head abruptly. "Follow your recovery instructions TO THE LETTER or I will have no problem with jamming another sedative in your aft plates and keeping you off-line for another week."

Marin folded her arms smugly, "Why, thank you Ratchet."

Bumblebee made a sour expression at the CMO's back. It didn't last long. His optics followed the green Hummer to his destination – the other end of the room bearing the battered form of their Leader, Optimus Prime. To the left of his position, occupying a berth of her own, was his sparkmate Elita One.

With slowing steps, Ratchet pulled up next to Prime. The medic had been churning through double shifts in his efforts to speed up the restoration of Optimus. First Aid was doing the same with Elita. Optimus was off-line – and would be for another few days yet – while Elita was only sent off-line when necessary, most often during a painful repair sequence.

Ratchet turned and smiled crookedly at Elita. "And how are you feeling this morning, Elita?"

The red armored femme gave him a small nod. "Doing well, thank you." Her repairs were almost complete. She had entered the resting phase of her recovery but she would get no real rest until Optimus was whole and normal again. Her optics roved over the medical equipment attached to her massive mech. "His spark is getting stronger. I really felt it last night... much closer to normal."

Other than grunting at her and filing away her comment, Ratchet didn't respond. He was already going over the repairs and replaced parts of Optimus that he had completed late the night before.

Standing quietly against the wall on the far side of Optimus with his hands tucked behind his back in a military pose, and half-hidden by equipment, Prowl spoke up quietly. "We're still no further with who did this, Ratchet."

The CMO paused, sparing Prowl a glance. He hadn't noticed him there. A large and sinister rifle hung from Prowl's right thigh. "We'll find'em. They can't hide or run with us gunning to remove their heads."

Prowl made a faint noise of agreement.

"You were here for most of the night after I left?" Ratchet enquired, tinkering.

"Yes." Prowl watched the medic's agile five-fingered hands. "Has your rifle been checked lately, Ratchet?"

While keeping one hand buried in Prime's torso and without looking at Prowl, Ratchet lifted his other arm up and transformed it into his solid no-nonsense gun with a series of clicks and sliding gears. The lethal weapon gleamed under the overhead lights.

With a perfunctory nod Prowl moved past him. "Good. Don't be afraid to use it in here if you need to."

Ratchet grunted, "...I never am."

Prowl strode past Bumblebee and arched one optic ridge at Bee cradling his now transformed solar arm cannon in his lap with a proud upward tilt of his head, Marin standing beside him with her hand on his normal arm and a wary expression. "Thank you, Bumblebee."

"Hey, I heard you were wanting some heavily armed and experienced warriors for this Optimus and Elita murderers hunt of yours, Prowl. So, like, we were wondering; do we qualify?"

Standing inside the medbay doors and appearing covered with weapons, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe lounged against the wall. Sideswipe with a smirk; Sunstreaker with his faceplates set in an expression reminiscent of the Terminator.

Prowl halted. His optics ranged over the rocket launchers, double-barrelled rifles, grenades, laser pulse guns, knives and other weapons decorating the Twins. They were absolutely ready to tear whoever did this a new aft and shove a rifle up it.

With unfazed optics Prowl nodded at them, "Yes. Follow me."

"Excellent!"

"Hn."

Bumblebee was envious. He was confined to his berth and it upset him greatly. At least he was close to Optimus and Elita, and could defend them easily enough. But still... he snatched up the datapad and writing implement one of the tech's had kindly provided him with and scribbled a message. He handed it over to a curious Marin with a triumphant expression.

Marin clutched the pad in both hands, struggling to read Bumblebee's hasty scribble. Mech's always had awful writing.

Her optic ridges rose in shock once she had deciphered it. With a roll of her optics she placed the pad back in his hand, "No, I will not, as you say, 'raid' Ironhide's room for guns and bring you 'everything in it'."

Bumblebee's faceplates drooped in disappointment. Then he brightened as he realised that Sunny and Sides had probably cleaned it out of anything useful anyway. He scribbled another message and handed it over once again. Marin wasn't so eager to read it but she did anyway.

In neater script on the lit screen of the pad were just two bold words - 'Love you'.

Marin's head lifted. Her blue optics shimmered with happiness. "Oh, you big silly, I love you too..."

Ironhide knew he was entering the medbay much later than Ratchet asked him to, and the moment his thumping heavy strides carried him through the doors he felt like turning around and hitting himself in the head to remove the image of Bumblebee with Marin sprawled across his midsection and hugging the life out of him. The femme's delicate blue frame fitted far too snugly into Bee's thicker and broader mech one.

With wincing faceplates, Ironhide first checked that Marin was not armed with a syringe any more (he'd never forget that one), then gingerly; with an expression like he'd eaten someone's month-old leftover energon; Ironhide backed himself up to the far wall and crept along slowly past them with his optics staring at the ceiling. "Oh, I am so not seeing this...nope, not looking, not looking at ALL... younglings, no modesty..."

While Ironhide freely groped and played lovey-dovey with Chromia at any time or place he felt like, he had an aversion to anyone else doing so with their mates in front of him. ESPECIALLY younglings. It made him feel; well; OLD. He was the living incarnation of Mr Double Standard.

He tapped the CMO on his shoulder, and jerked a thumb back at Bumblebee and friend, "Hey Ratch, you need signs or something. Look."

Not wanting to, but knowing he had to, Ratchet glanced over his shoulder. Marin had graduated to sitting sideways in Bumblebee's lap, her head under his chin and her knees drawn up to her chest. Bee's left thigh was drawn up to support her and he was stroking her back. "Don't try to distract me from the fact that you're late, slag-head. And as long as they are not interfacing or interfering with his repairs, I don't care. I'm busy. And you are too – here, hold this." Ratchet directed Ironhide to hold a piece of Prime's armor he was currently threading some last final pieces of wiring into.

Ironhide stood there like he'd stepped in something distressing, his noseplates shifted upwards. "Oh."

With bad grace, the black mech did as he was told, helping out with the repairs of Optimus – holding a leg or arm up in the air, rolling the giant sleeping mech onto his side and balancing him there so Ratch could attend to his wide back area, or using his strength to angle in one end of a replaced part while Ratchet held the other end. He didn't grow restless standing in one position for a long time while Ratchet cursed, fiddled and banged things about, he was used to holding one pose for a long period of time. Soldiers were good at that.

Ironhide was also aware of Elita One's optics locked onto him, watching every move he made with his hands on her beloved. That didn't faze him. He did feel awkward when the CMO shunted aside some of the chest armor to expose Prime's temporarily repaired spark casing without any warning or apology. The sharp blue light of the huge mech's spark almost hurt his optics. He grunted and directed his gaze away from the privacy-invading sight, staring at the wall.

"I don't expect you'll suddenly get the hots for him, Ironhide."

"Huh?" Ironhide jerked his head to look at Elita after her softly spoken words.

From her semi-reclining position, Elita gestured with one small hand at her prone mate, "It doesn't worry me if you see Optimus' spark, and I don't believe it worries him either. Please don't feel awkward about it."

"I'm... I'm not," Ironhide shrugged , the metal of his shoulders creaking. Then he grinned, seeing something on the other side of Elita's table, "but if you're really interested in something disgusting, look behind you."

The femme arched an optic ridge then glanced backwards. "Aww, that's sweet, there's nothing wrong with that!"

Feeling tired, Marin had laid her head upon Bumblebee's berth next to his chest from her sitting position and was clearly in recharge. Bumblebee – looking entirely smitten with his femme – was holding one of her hands with his own while stroking the back of her neck with his other hand. It was touching to see the bulky yellow mech acting so tender. Bee hadn't noticed the stares or comments he was getting.

Ironhide grimaced, "Ick. Hey Ratch, can't you discharge Bumblebee or something? Just to protect the rest of us forced to work here?"

"No. And shut the frag up, some of us are working here."

"Yeah, yeah," Ironhide sighed.

On the other side of the guarded and closed medbay doors, Chromia shouldered her way through the waiting crowd. Many of the Autobots had stationed themselves outside the medbay whenever their duty shifts in the wreckage of the base ended, waiting for news or providing more back-up for the dedicated guards already there.

Prowl had not lowered the current alert status for the base from its highest security level – red – and since Marin was not armed, Chromia had thoughtfully brought a spare rifle along with her. Her own weaponry was intimidating enough; a thick and long-barrelled laser concussion rifle with regenerating cells and optional armor-piercing rounds; a smaller version of Optimus Prime's own fearsome bolt rifle. It hung from re-enforced mounts on her right hip armor. A gyro balancing mechanism custom installed by Ironhide kept it hanging perfectly vertical from her hip with the deadly end down no matter what way she moved.

"Chromia! Wait!"

Just about the whole contingent of Autobots froze in place with their hands held up high, their optics staring at the floor with cringing optics. Humans running around their feet was never a good thing. Squishing, and all that stuff tended to happen.

Chromia smiled when she saw Sam and Mikaela emerge from behind the thick feet of the milling mechs.

"Hello Sam! Mikaela, you've decided to visit us at last!"

The human female fluttered her eyelashes up at the blue femme, "Yeah, umm, you know, you do things like get the big guy blown up and then mess with his girlfriend too," she rubbed her hands up and down her jean clad thighs nervously, "and Bumblebee makes the news towing something he doesn't have the power for so his engine blows up, that kinda means I _need_ to visit, you know?"

Despite Mikaela's casual words, her face was grim and worried. All business. From one femme to another, Chromia could tell the state of the other femme's mind when her appearance was rough and messy. Mikaela's make-up was smeared and old.

Sam stood beside her, nodding, "She skipped her finals to get here. I couldn't stop her." The boy scuffed a foot on the floor, lowering his head. "Not that I really wanted to..." he mumbled.

Chromia crouched down, meeting their faces, "I'll see if I can get you inside. Ratchet is being more touchy than usual about who can visit his patients."

"Are they okay? I heard Optimus went close to... uh..." Mikaela gulped, eyes on the floor, not able to mouth the word 'dying', "and how is Elita? And Bumblebee! He must be in so much pain!"

A drained mech voice interrupted them. "Optimus is still being repaired and Elita is in recovery. Bumblebee is fine and gets pain suppressors when he needs them, not before. Does that answer your concerns?"

The group all looked up at Ratchet standing in the open doorway of the medbay with one arm propped on each side of the door. The medic looked very tired, and although his armor was clean, it was scuffed and dented. The large black crashbar of his Hummer mode on his chest had been removed, making it easier for him to get stuck elbow deep into Optimus Prime's chaotic internals.

Ratchet's optics swept the crowd outside his medbay. "Perhaps you had better come inside. Chromia, escort them please." He turned around and disappeared.

The humans didn't need telling – they darted inside with Chromia striding along at their heels. The medical benches were set at a height that made it hard to tell what was going on. Sam spotted Marin's legs poking out from the nearest bench – "BEE!"

Bumblebee's head lifted like a shot. He saw Sam and started flailing his hands wildly. Ratchet smacked him readily.

"Do NOT upset your repair work, youngling!" He added, "And stop trying to speak!" when Bumblebee made strange huffing and clicking sounds, obviously trying to talk to his human boy and forgetting he was again mute.

Chromia smiled and lifted the human pair up onto Bee's bench. While Sam squeaked and fussed over 'his car', Mikaela's eyes slowly took in the state of the other two Autobots laid up in the medbay. Her hands swept up to her mouth in horror.

"Oh my God..."

The jumbled, partly dis-assembled, enormous mech stripped of armor (and hence without any distinguishing colors) and with internal systems bared on the end table was obviously Optimus. Only he was _that_ big... _that_ wide... had so many parts...

She'd never seen such a wreck... how on Earth was he NOT dead?! And how could a building do him so much damage when Megatron trying to kill him hadn't? Wasn't Optimus, like, indestructible?

Elita appeared to be seeing what Optimus looked like from Mikaela's point-of-view and looked disturbed. Chromia was monitoring both of the humans, not knowing what their reactions were going to be. Ironhide was still standing at his post next to Optimus. Marin had woken from recharge and was explaining Bee's repairs to Sam while the boy patted Bee sympathetically.

Ratchet stood back and watched them all in an indulgent moment of reflection, his optics in studying mode. He knew that things would go back to normal eventually. Elita was at the self-repair stage of her injuries, as was Bumblebee. Optimus would be fixed. They had lost Bluestreak but Smokescreen was holding on; somehow.

Their kind had been through situations like this before... but he was so tired of the price. Friends lost and gained. Others hurt. New scars on top of old ones, not all of them physical.

He looked back at Optimus Prime's still frame.

Ironhide picked up a particularly mangled piece of Prime's torso armor and shook it out of interest, glaring with annoyance at the awful broken noise it made. The black mech dropped it disdainfully back onto the bench and looked at Ratchet with a very pout-like expression of 'hurry up, this doesn't put itself back together!'.

Ratchet smiled grimly to himself_. 'Better get back to it.'_


	16. Chapter 16

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: A big thanks to _**optimus prime 007**_ and _**plenoptic**_ (for saying "OPT AND LITA ARE STILL ALL SMASHED") for getting me off my aft and pounding a new chapter of this. Thanks go to _**Bunnylass**_ and my other enthusiastic reviewers who give me the will to keep going (literally).

**Chapter 16**

_**One week after the attack on the Autobot Base...**_

"So, everything is okay now?"

"Yes."

"Fully functional?"

"Fully functional."

"He won't be crying in pain when I turn him on? Or spouting bleeders? Or breaking things?"

"...No."

"No crossed wires, memory dumps or tripped breakers?"

"...."

A slight foot scuffle. The creaking of armor.

"ALL systems functional?"

"For Cybertron's sake, femme, HE WILL WORK!"

Elita One grinned at the finger-clenching, intakes-heaving, full-on-glaring Autobot CMO - Ratchet. "Oh. Well then. Let's bring him back to us without further discussion."

Standing behind the shoulder of the satisfied Femme Commander as a black motionless lump, Ironhide lifted an optic ridge at Ratchet. "You know, maybe we should perhaps test a few _other_ things before we start him up."

"Be quiet, Ironhide. I am just as capable of putting you on this table as that building was to my Optimus." Elita's words were as sweet and cheerful as a spring day, but Ironhide's expression shut down without a word of comeback from his mouthplates at the femme that barely reached the level of his waist.

Ironhide pouted ungraciously, staring into a corner of the room to avoid looking at her, "Hn."

Ratchet took a moment to make a 'you suck' expression at Ironhide, then rolled his shoulderplates. "Before we start, you must realise that I will not bring such a massive mech as Optimus back on-line without some sort of sedative in his system. To, uh, blunt the shocks of becoming operational again." He jumped in to stall the protest from Elita. "I will not argue you with you, Elita, it must be this way. At the very least, it will stop him from leaping off this berth and racing around checking on the welfare of every single Autobot in this place and then not recharging for the next few Earth days while he frets."

Ironhide scowled, "The Prime does not _fret_."

"Ironhide, snuff yourself. Now, Prime will come back to us perfectly well but you must expect him to be a little slow with his circuits. He'll be hesitant when he talks and won't understand long and detailed conversations."

Ironhide tapped a thick finger on Optimus Prime's chest armor, "No different from normal then, right Ratch?"

Elita One ran her optics over the long wide form of her sparkmate as Ratchet spoke. Being with Optimus for so long had often blinded her to how big and powerful he was. She was used to the way he took up so much space; she automatically calculated her actions and movements to fit around him. She wasn't consciously aware of her adjustments, she just did it - he was _this_ big, and _this_ tall, and needed _this_ much space in a room. Seeing him laid out and quiet without his usual charisma and presence to fill his mammoth frame made him seem like a giant stranger.

The femme touched a hand to the latent mech, whispering the touch of her fingers over his shoulder and to the middle of his bulging chest. The tender moment was broken when Ironhide started up his mouthplates again.

"Chuck the sedative, Ratch, we'll fit him with a leash. Elita can handle him well enough," Ironhide made motions with his hands, "you know; sit, stand, fetch. Like the rodent."

Elita's rifle was in her hand and pointed upside of Ironhide's jaw – jabbing at the hollow between his head and neck - before her CPU caught up with what her body was doing. "_OUT_!!"

"...but!"

"OUT!"

Elita shoved, pushed, poked, slapped and threatened until Ironhide found himself thrust outside the medbay doors. While the big black mech stood blinking confusedly at being dumped, the femme looked around at the many mech's waiting for news on Optimus Prime's awakening.

"Bumblebee! Come here!"

The Camaro tilted his head enquiringly at the rose red female Commander and pointed at his own chest - Me?

"Yes you. Come inside, we'll need your help with bringing Optimus back online, since Iron-aft can't be sensible."

Hearing Elita's clipped words, the gruff Weapons Specialist turned and stomped off down the hallway, growling and grumbling to himself. He knew when he wasn't wanted. With a 'what-did-he-do?' glance at Elita, Chromia chased after him.

"Go on Bee, they obviously need help," Marin spoke quietly, laying her small hand on Bumblebee's forearm armor.

Bee's head nodded, and with a pat to her shoulder, he trotted after Elita. Entering the room, his optics locked on the sight of Ratchet with one of his hands shoved under Prime's chest armor, his fingers scrapping and poking ineffectually while he cursed.

"Frag it, of all the stupid things... Primus hates me..." Ratchet groused.

Elita arched an optic at the grumpy medic getting physical with her mate. "Problem?"

"No."

"Then why is your hand stuck in my mech's chest up to the elbow?" Elita demanded, not liking the way Ratchet was shoving and pulling.

"If you MUST know, I dropped a probe which I am now attempting to retrieve."

Elita grabbed Ratchet's arm and pulled it backwards with a hard yank. "I'll get it. Better me than you. Where exactly is it?"

One of Ratchet's fingers pointed at a small hidey hole under the left hand side of Prime's chest. "Uh... here."

The femme's optics brightened, "Oh yes, I lose things there too. I've told him about adjusting his armor but oh no, he likes it the way it is." Elita's fingers made a darting/poking movement, easily pulling out Ratchet's lost probe. "Here. Keep a hold of it next time."

Ratchet didn't dare ask what 'things' Elita lost in Prime's chassis. It was probably better for his personal safety that he remained ignorant.

Standing still and straight on his feet, Bumblebee watched the interplay of Elita and Ratchet around the Autobot Supreme Commander. It was strange to see Optimus so quiet and still. Lying on his back, he looked even more broad and massive than when he was standing upright. An enormous chunk of sleeping mech.

"I think we're ready now," Ratchet said sourly, not impressed at being pushed around by a femme. "I'll inject the sedative, then switch on his electrical relays. If for whatever reason he starts flailing his limbs or tries to leap off the table, I'll off-line him again." The CMO's optics latched onto Bumblebee. "Bee, you take his left side and I'll take the right to start with. If you need to restrain him, grab his left shoulder and keep him down."

Elita frowned, "Why do you think he's going to be so active?"

Ratchet's optics swept over Prime's frame. "He's a soldier, Elita. And his programming may direct him to fight after being knocked off-line. You were both being threatened the last time he was fully aware. He'll remember that, so be ready that he might start moving fast."

With a nod at Bumblebee, Ratchet injected a vial of white liquid into an access port on Prime's forearm, toggled a series of switches – and braced himself with one hand on his patients shoulder.

Despite his eager audience, Optimus Prime didn't react. His giant frame stayed unmoving. He was cold and silent. Bumblebee looked at Ratchet from Prime's other side as if to say ' Did you do it right?'.

Elita moved closer, leaning in, surveying her mech with anticipation. "C'mon, Orion, don't keep me wait - OUCH!"

Optimus' hand had grabbed onto hers where it was resting upon the table, and he wasn't letting go. Elita clutched onto the encompassing hand with her free hand. Prime's optics flared with bright blue brilliance then died back to soft blue. His frame shuddered from head to feet. A groan came from him.

"Careful..." Ratchet murmured. "Optimus, can you hear me?"

With a slight nod, those legendary optics shifted to look at the CMO. Then Bumblebee. Then...

"...Lita...?"

Elita One smiled tenderly. She'd never been so pleased to hear the deep rolling rumble of her mate's voice, "Optimus. You came back."

Optimus Prime's voice was rasping and wistful, "Where... would... I... go?"

The femme squeezed his hand, hugging it to her face with twinkling optics. She wanted to jump up onto the table and throw herself against his chest in joy, but that kind of affection could wait until there were no other bots around to watch.

Ratchet waved at Bumblebee to back off, giving the lovebirds a moment.

Optimus had to concentrate, his CPU was still processing and re-organising, "You... okay? The building... came down."

"Yes, I'm fine, but how do you feel? Any pain?"

"No." Optimus shook his head firmly.

"Oh good." Elita carefully put his hand down, patted it – then slapped her sparkmate lightly in the side of the head. Ratchet winced. Bumblebee looked on in shock. "Don't you EVER try to kill yourself to save me like that again! Are you listening to me, Orion?"

With Elita's stern face mere inches from his own, Optimus smiled serenely at his lady love. She was such a beautiful and feisty female. His CPU showed images of him cradling her small body beneath his own as the building collapsed on top of them with no way out. He remembered the horror he'd felt when even his monumental strength hadn't been enough to prevent her from getting hurt. That was something he would never forget.

Optimus lifted his head fractionally and pecked her smoothly on the nose with his mouthplates. He didn't mind being slapped again, laughing at her, "Love.. you."

Elita growled with a huff and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. Her spark was beating wildly in joy to have its partner back, and she was _so_ going to get him back later for that kiss on the nose.

"...Ratch?" Optimus looked expectantly at the Hummer.

The CMO came closer and tried to stifle his grin at the antics of his Commander and his femme. "You're doing fine, Optimus. While I can't really name much of you that hasn't been replaced or fixed, you are now in perfect working order. Your CPU has a mountain of data and new relays to get through, that's why your speech and thoughts are slow and cumbersome. Give it one Earth day and you'll be – as the humans say – right as rain."

Optimus nodded. "Thank you. I owe you... my life." His optics locked onto the yellow form of Bumblebee standing back from the action and waiting to be acknowledged. "Bumblebee..."

"Yes Sir?" The scout took a step forward and brightened upon being addressed.

"I dimly... remember... a Camaro... and a crane. Am I... right?"

Bee's head bowed humbly, "Yes. It was the fastest way."

"He found it with Captain Lennox's help," Elita explained, then lifted her chin proudly at Bumblebee, "Then he and Marin got it here as fast as they could. He got us out of there."

Gentle but commanding optics stayed on Bumblebee, "Marin... helped?" Optimus asked.

"Yes Sir, she cleared a path for us to get through. She was worried about you and Elita."

"Ah." Optimus Prime nodded slowly. "Must give... her... thanks. She is... a good soldier."

"Thank you Sir. She will be impressed at being described as a soldier." Bumblebee was pleased that Marin's efforts has been recognised. But then, what else did one expect when you were dealing with Optimus Prime? Every solider – female or male – was precious to him.

"I think it's time we got you back to your temporary quarters, Optimus," Ratchet broke in, "Some good old recharge and being out of the medbay will do you wonders, yes?"

With the aid of Bumblebee and Ratchet on either side, Optimus was helped to his feet (a not inconsiderable task since he was one of the biggest mech's in the Autobot army), where he stood swaying for a quite a few seconds before his stabilisers kicked in. Slowly exiting the medbay with Elita at his side, the Commander was greeted by an enormous roar of approval from his gathered soldiers and friends. He lifted his head and smiled at his reception.

"Thank you. All of... you. Your support... and goodwill... is appreciated. For the moment... I am told... my speech will... improve... or Ratchet has... crossed a wrong... wire somewhere."

A smattering of laughter greeted his words. Ratchet made a face; him? Get it wrong? As if.

"Tomorrow I will... be back. Now I must..." Optimus grimaced, "_rest_."

Bumblebee snaked his way through the crowd to Marin's side. She grabbed onto his waist and refused to let go, her optics glistening as she watched Optimus.

"He's back?" Marin asked, straining her head back to look up at Bumblebee.

The Camaro nodded enthusiastically, "Oh yes, he's back."


	17. Chapter 17

**Birds and Bumblebees**

**Authors Note: **I am SO sorry for the delay in updating this. Like many other writers recently (a virus going round? LOL) I have had the worst case of writers block. NOTHING useful or inspiring is coming out of my brain right now! I feel so useless! I finally managed to wrestle my plot into submission, but I'm afraid that while this is an update and the plot is _moving – _instead of being belly-up and smelly like tragic road kill - this isn't the best writing I've ever done. Apologies! I'll make up for it in the next chapter – promise!

**Chapter 17**

_**Autobot base, Earth, late evening.**_

Optimus Prime stood still and silent at the small viewing window of the temporary quarters he and his sparkmate Elita One were inhabiting. Looking out at the remains of his Earth base on the other side of the thick glass. His optics glowed steadily in the darkness of the late evening. Twin orbs that surveyed his surroundings with analytical intensity while his solid body was immobile and daunting in its latent power. His heavy laser rifle was attached to his back, the handle peeking out over his shoulder as a warning to whoever saw it. It was an addition he had worn ever since his release from medbay several days ago. He did not like to appear as the aggressor, but after recent events he would have no hesitation in using it if he, Elita, or any of his soldiers were threatened again.

Since the attack that had killed several Autobots and nearly terminated himself and Elita under a collapsed building, he had struggled internally with several issues; some to do with his health (which he tried not to dwell on, but he was very much a 'senior' mech in more than just experience and he could no longer easily shake off injuries), others were his worry over the life of his bonded partner, but mostly, he worried for the safety of his Autobots and other Cybertronians who had joined him on Earth. Their sanctuary had turned out to be not so safe. Yet again his people were facing aggression and termination. The loss of Bluestreak, and the welfare of his spark partner Smokescreen was another tragic issue he was still trying to cope with.

"Stop brooding."

Optimus turned his head marginally to watch his femme Elita stride into the room. She was covered with dust and grime, her thick pulse rifle swinging from her hip. His spark warmed at the sight of her. Prime returned to looking forwards as she halted next to him and slid one arm up the middle of his armored back, her fingers caressing his back strut under his weapon.

"I do not brood," Optimus said softly. His heavy physique relaxed. Elita always managed to drain stress out of him just by being close.

"You do. But I will concede that brooding is a better thing to do than raging and ranting like your brother," Elita said in a conversational tone. She glanced up at him, his extreme height combined with his regal bearing and closeness making her spark beat faster as usual. "Would you like some news?"

Prime lifted an optic ridge mildly. "Is it good news?"

"Yes," Elita lowered her hand on his back to rest on the rear of his hip, "Marin has now officially been signed on as part of the Femme Command Unit. She will be doing _my_ administrative duties – not yours - until we have sufficient time to have her fully trained as a solider. Bumblebee is both pleased and worried. He wants her trained to protect herself but he is not so happy to have her put at risk in battle."

"Ah." Prime nodded. His blue optics turned down to look at her, one of his large hands rested on her shoulder. "The very same way I felt about you when the war began."

"Yes," Elita cocked her head at him, "But I learnt how to deal with you, and I can also coach Marin in tactics on how to deal with mechs wishing to protect and mollycoddle her."

The Autobot Commander rolled his optics, his heavy armor creaking as his weight shifted from one hip to the other, "Femme, don't start that." He removed his hand from her shoulder, lifting it to stare at the sheer amount of grime left on his fingers. He rubbed his fingertips together, "You are filthy."

"I'm filthy?", she snorted, "You should have seen Marin. I took her along to shadow me during my shift today. We should hear Bumblebee shrieking about the state of his femme any second now."

_**Outside the temporary Command Centre...**_

Marin set herself down on the steps near the community hall, gingerly resting her small aft on the ground and sighing with relief at being able to rest her body AND processor after following Elita One around all day. That femme was nearly impossible to keep up with! The amount of work she could cram into one duty shift was unbelievable. Marin was starting to realise the commitment and sheer labour involved with Elita's job offer. Working as a soldier was not going to be easy but she was determined to prove herself in the optics of Elita and Bumblebee as well as contribute to the Autobot cause, even if her physical abilities to fire a rifle or engage in combat were sadly lacking.

Marin stuck her elbows on her drawn up knees and rested her face in her hands. She dimmed her optics and enjoyed a quiet moment.

...which was broken seconds later by a startled shriek.

Brightening her optics, the femme looked up to see Bumblebee standing in front of her with a distressed expression on his faceplates. His optic shutters clicked frantically, his hands held out in an gesture of shock. Stepping closer, the Camaro placed his hands around her waist and effortlessly lifted her up in front of him, his optics travelling the length of her body in horror.

"Bumblebee, put me down!" Marin protested, putting her hands on his chest and pushing back at him.

A musical snippet from an old Earth song of 'You dirty broad, you filthy rat!' came back at her.

"I'm not a rat!" Marin growled, playfully smacking her mech on the top of his head.

Bumblebee trilled at her, then he deftly turned her around in his grasp and surveyed the mess on her back, legs and hips. A keening whistle of distress came from him. She was covered in so much muck it was obscuring the color of her metal. How could this have happened to his petite, clean femme?!

"Yes, I'm just as filthy behind as in front, stop that!" Marin batted at his hands on her midsection. Obligingly, her mech swivelled her around to face him once again and set her gently down on her feet. "I followed Commander Elita around the bomb sites today and did some cleaning up," she explained and patted his chest, "it's nothing that a good scrub in the wash racks won't fix, don't worry. Dirt isn't permanent."

Bumblebee reached down a fingertip and brushed it lovingly over her petite noseplates, "Wash... you..." his scratchy vocaliser managed to emit. His voice still wasn't as good as it could be, but the Medbay and Ratchet had been so busy with injured Autobots after the attack, that he hadn't wanted to bother anyone with trying to fix it yet again.

"You will? You want to?" Marin almost stuttered. A proper Autobot warrior wanted to wash _her_ body? Amazing. "O-okay..."

Bumblebee had enough rank to shoo a few slow moving 'bots out of the public wash racks to enable some quiet time for him and his femme. Marin rejoiced in being pampered. Her mech was extraordinarily attentive and gentle. His four-fingered silver hands glided and probed her metal so well that she had trouble holding back her groans of pleasure. She was enjoying herself far too much – hence the self indulgent disappointed pout on her faceplates when Bumblebee was drawn away before he could finish rinsing her of cleanser suds. His comlink called him away with little regard for their 'personal' time. He grabbed her into a quick bear hug which smeared the front of his body in soap bubbles – then turned for the door.

"Be careful... come back to me..." Marin called softly after him, standing on the wet tiles. She knew that any time he was called away for an emergency could very well mean he might never come back. She had struggled to deal with it, but she understood it. He was an army mech. None of her previous lovers had been. Bumblebee was unique.

The Camaro paused. Turned back to face her. Placed one hand palm down on his chest, then lifted it out to face her in an expression of '_My spark is_ _yours_', dropped his hand and hurried out the door in a blur of yellow.

"Nice mech you've got there, Marin."

The blue femme lifted her gaze to see the tall red Femme Commander lounging in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and her head tilted to watch Bumblebee hurry away down the corridor.

Marin ducked her head shyly. "Yes. I think so. One in a million. It's hard to find mechs like him." Then her optics brightened. "OH! I didn't mean to say he's better than-"

"My Optimus?" Elita interrupted with a grin, unfolding her arms and straightening up, "When it comes to Bee, I don't take offence. He's a special case... I think we'd all agree on that."

"Hey, if you don't take offence, I will," Chromia drawled, pushing past Elita and nudging her in the back with her shoulder. "Neither of your mechs top Ironhide. Process that!"

Marin stood blinking between the taller, weapon-carrying, armor-clad femmes as they took up the spaces either side of her in the stalls. She was brave enough to admit that as nice as Elita and Chromia were to her, she was still intimidated by the warrior femmes. They were smarter, faster, more experienced, and knew exactly how to plant a Decepticon on his aft with very little trouble at all. Not to mention that while Elita was a Commander in her own right, her sparkmate was the Supreme Autobot Commander, Optimus Prime, and Chromia's mate was the awe-inspiring (if bad tempered and impolite) planet-destroying, Ironhide.

"Something wrong?"

Marin shook herself out of her fog and lifted her head to see Elita One leaning her arms on the stall partition and propping her chin on one hand while gazing down at her indulgently.

"No, Commander. Just thinking..." Marin replied softly, trying not to stare at Elita in the faceplates for too long. She could never forget that she was not – and probably never would be – in the same class as Elita or Chromia, but slag it, she was going to try and improve herself, no matter that she might cop a lot of well-meaning but misplaced sympathy for it.

"Leave the kid alone, 'Lita."

A flying wet rag clocked Elita in the forehead. Marin gasped, holding her hands up to her mouthplates. To her amazement, the Femme Commander didn't pull out her rifle and shoot Chromia's aft off, she merely sent a pitying glance down at the squished rag by her feet and lifted an optic ridge at her fellow warrior. Marin couldn't get over the sheer brilliance of Elita's armor covering her almost-perfect athletically curved physique. Her body was glistening erotically under the solvent shower. She was never going to be a petite, beautiful, and slender dancer-bot, but slag, Elita had a commanding presence and beauty that put any other half-decent femme to shame. She could certainly be the poster femme for what a 'real' femme looked like. No scanty paper-thin body plates and impossibly narrow limbs here.

"Mia..." Elita growled.

Chromia pouted and flicked a dismissing hand at her. "Stop chatting and clean yourself up before Optimus comes in here and pins you to the floor to do it for you."

"The last time Optimus managed to pin me to the floor and win a wrestling match was so long ago that you were still processing what a mech was good for," Lita shot back, "remember that? Ironhide had to convince you that a mech had other 'purposes' other than being good to take pot-shots at."

Chromia removed her hefty black rifle from subspace and held it under the solvent spray to clean it, totally ignoring Elita. She hummed to herself. Marin looked back and forth between them. Observing. It was against protocol to clean weapons in the wash racks, but she wasn't about to tell Chromia that. If Elita stayed silent, so would she.

Elita let out a frustrated sigh, but by the small smile on her mouthplates Marin was able to deduce that this kind of banter between the legendary femmes was common. And welcome. Marin returned to finishing her washing, only perking up her audios when either femme said something interesting (which was just about every time they opened their mouthplates – Marin now knew things about Prime and Ironhide that were very _interesting_).

Marin was kept on the hop and extraordinarily busy by her new boss for the next few days. Fortunately, there were no more threats of bomb attacks or any other Decepticon activity. Regardless, Optimus Prime kept everyone on high alert and the base was in partial lockdown with restricted areas, armed guards and multiple checkpoints. Their Leader was not going to allow any leeway for more devastating explosions.

"Up for a little roadtrip?"

For a moment sitting at her desk, Marin had trouble processing who was talking to her. Her CPU was kept engaged and at full speed to keep up with the workload Elita was burdening her with. Her optics softened when she recognised the male human standing in her office doorway.

"Major Lennox. It is nice to see you again."

"Likewise." Will rubbed his hand over his newly shaved head, studying the small alien femme. "I need to run an errand, and I don't have any free mechs that I know to beg a lift from. Since I can't exactly head down to the local community areas in a Jeep with a machine gun on the roof-"

"You require transport of a civilian nature and I fit the bill," Marin warmly filled in the blanks for him.

"Uh, yeah. Not to mention your seats are much softer than Ironhide's," Lennox grimaced with a roll of his eyes, "would you mind driving me around for a little bit?"

"No problem. I am due for a break and transporting you qualifies as one," Marin answered with a smile.

Moments later, the Major found himself in Marin's tiny Smart Two-For-Two three door car mode zipping down the long main runway for the base which ran between the official military buildings and the outer residential/civilian areas. Lennox popped his head out of Marin's lowered window into the wind and leant his elbow on the door, appreciating the ride in a car which wasn't huge, over-armored or rumbling with un-Earthly dominant mech power. Just simple, honest-to-God efficient transport. The last time he'd been in Marin, they'd been blazing a trail for Bumblebee pulling a crane to rescue Optimus and Elita with. Lennox was still thanking any heavenly deities that might be listening that they'd managed to save the big guy and his femme.

...so when Marin gave a cry of alarm and slew herself sideways to avoid an obstacle, Lennox wasn't in a good position to stop himself from nearly being thrown headfirst out her side window. Marin reacted fast enough despite her shock to rip a seatbelt across his lap and jam him inside. It was a good thing that she did, because her momentum and sudden serve sent her abnormally tiny car form into a series of vicious nose-over-aft tumbles, her metal body screeching and smoking with the rough treatment. Metal slamming into concrete at high speed was never a great melody.

Marin was brought to a harsh halt by a thick silver leg planting itself in her rolling path, bringing her to a standstill on her side when she collided with it in a loud crunch.

Still strapped in, Major Lennox blinked at the swathes of blood running down his face and took stock of the situation. His left arm felt broken. Hurt like hell. His back was killing him too, and something was looming over Marin's silent form. At first he thought it was an Autobot come to help, but then he focused blearily on the glaring red optics and bird-like ugly face staring through Marin's scratched windscreen.

...Starscream.


	18. Chapter 18

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: This has been a long, LONG, time in coming. Six months since the last chapter, at least! I'm terribly sorry to have taken so long. My brain was dead for this. I did consider offering to hand this over to another writer, someone who could do better with it and finish it, but I've had a few jolts to my writing ideas lately and so here it is! Another chapter. Phew!

**Chapter 18**

**Autobot base, Earth...**

The base alarms couldn't blare any louder or faster than they were designed to but with the heavy weight of Optimus Prime thundering down the hallway on long striding legs, any bot could tell that this was no boring drill.

"DECEPTICON JET ON THE MAIN RUNWAY! POSSIBLE FURTHER INBOUND ATTACKERS! ALL UNITS RESPOND!"

The Autobot Commander grunted as he grabbed at the wall and harshly dug his fingers into the cement so he could tear around the corner to the base exit without losing any speed. Prowl's voice blaring throughout the base was as no-nonsense and to-the-point as it always was. The Transformers didn't need auditory confirmation of what was going on like the humans did. Their comlinks and direct interface into the Autobot command system told them everything they needed to know without having to wait until someone was officially yelling over a loudspeaker to tell them what they needed to do, but a speaker system was great for making bots and humans realise that this was some serious shit.

Optimus arrived on the tarmac and stepped up into the middle of his officers and soldiers as they were getting themselves into effective combat positions with their rifles and cannons aimed and ready to fire. The soldiers automatically deftly moved to the left or to the right to give Prime right of way. The don't-fuck-with-me deadly and cold expression on Optimus' face was familiar to any Autobot who had ever spent time on the battlefield with the legendary commander when he was really slagged off. The well-known glint of his regal blue, red, and chrome armor on his tall physique upon the battlefield bolstered the confidence of his Autobots and made Decepticons cower away.

Prime's optics stared into those of Ironhide who was on the opposite side of the wide tarmac. The bulky black Weapons Specialist looked back at him with a shared sense of purpose, and that purpose was crouching in the open in front of them. Optimus nodded at Ironhide and pulled his thick silver pulse rifle from his back as his personal battle systems flared with fury at the scene in front of them.

Starscream. In all his ugly and vicious, grey-metal glory. A jetfighter with a cowardly; but savage and cunning; spark.

With the crumpled and abused vehicle mode of the Autobot femme Marin at his feet.

A yellow blur that started to duck past Optimus Prime made the tall commander drop his rifle and dive to catch and block the smaller mech racing past him.

"NO BUMBLEBEE!"

Bumblebee writhed and struggled in the hard grasp of his commander and substitute mech creator. When he realised that he couldn't escape from Prime's strong hold, he wailed. A long high-pitched sound of pain and fury. Across the tarmac standing beside her big black mech sparkmate, the blue femme Chromia took one glance at how Bumblebee was reacting and pulled a second big rifle from her subspace pocket so that she doubled her firepower with one in each hand and pointed both weapons at Starscream's ugly head from a hundred feet away. And closing.

"Bumblebee..." Prime's deep growl made the younger mech freeze for a moment. He softened his tone, "Wait, soldier. I know you want to rescue Marin but racing in may cause Starscream to terminate her before we can discuss terms." He stayed kneeling and kept his arms around the youngling mech. "Can I trust you not to move if I remove my embrace?"

The Camaro was silent. Head bowed.

Optimus rumbled sharply, "_Can I_?"

Jerking his arms free from Prime's grasp, Bumblebee hissed but nodded. Letting the mech go, Optimus retrieved his rifle and rose to his feet, returning his attention to the situation at hand. Information coming at him from multiple sources told him what was going on. Only Starscream was here. No other 'Cons. Marin wasn't responding to any comlink hails...

...and a very roughed up and injured Major Will Lennox was groaning and cursing in Marin's front seat.

_**Inside Marin's beaten-up chassis...**_

Inside Marin, Will struggled with one arm to wipe the blood flowing down his face from his cut scalp out of his eyes and clear his vision. Starscream had ceased glaring at him through the mangled windscreen and was occupied with something else. He could see his thick short legs but that was it. Will couldn't see it, but he hoped it was the Autobots that had Starshit's attention. In force. The idiot had landed at the Autobot base, which meant every Autobot around had to be out there and packing.

"Marin?" Lennox whispered. With his working arm, he wiped his fingers shakily across his eyes once more to clear the blood. "Marin, you there?"

No response.

"C'mon girl, say something." He coughed and dribbled some frothy blood, "You okay?"

Nothing.

Blinking his eyelids rapidly against the blood in his eyes, Lennox did a look around of Marin's messed up interior. She wasn't military grade, so her components were not as tough as that of a soldier. Her seatbelt was still clamped tightly around his waist and chest. Struggling with the clasp, he managed to release it – and he shrieked in pain as his injured body fell down from the passenger seat and against the drivers side door. With Marin settled on her side it wasn't a long way to fall, but his broken arm didn't appreciate it. He lay gasping, waiting for the all-encompassing white hot pain to recede, and hoped like hell that Optimus Prime and Ironhide were out there, ready to turn Starscream into a Wal-Mart toaster.

_**From the outside...**_

Starscream hovered over Marin, glancing around at the angry Autobots gathering around him on the tarmac at a safe distance. He had planned on that happening. There could have been hundreds of Autobots there and he still wouldn't have been worried. The soft-sparked, femme-loving, caring-CPU, rejects that called themselves 'Autobots' wouldn't shoot at him or touch him as long as he was with the chassis of the small blue female, and his wickedly strong armor prevented any clever sniper shots from taking him down. Having a human inside the blue femme was a bonus. He hadn't planned that. He smirked and rested his hand on top of Marin's side door, causing her car form to creak and squeal on the concrete.

He was in charge of what was going to happen next. And he liked it. He was made to be the leading instigator of the Decepticons. He revelled in it.

Optimus Prime's voice thundered at him, "Do you think you are getting away with this, Starscream? Look around you. Think again."

Starscream met Prime's blazing blue optics with a smirk. Oh, he saw. The Autobot Leader was, as always, up in front of his loyal soldiers, his big signature rifle in his hand. He was so confident that he wasn't even pointing it his way. It was cocked at the ground. Slaghead. Ironhide, the stupid old black mech, was on the other side of the scene – angry and packing. And oh looky, now the humans were pulling up in their cute armored play toy vehicles too. How hopelessly stupid of them. They were all so useless and they didn't know it yet.

Starscream gouged his clawed digits into Marin's side, getting a deep strong hold, "I'm taking this femme, Prime. She will be returned to you when my demands and needs have been met. Think about that, and remember it."

Before Optimus could formulate a response or make any move, the Decepticon mech flash fired his thrusters and launched himself in his robot mode straight upwards into the sky at high speed. Even Ironhide's incredible reaction speed and fearsome cannons missed doing anything more than igniting the fuel vapour left behind by 'Screamer's burning thrusters, and sending the Autobots on his opposite side covering their heads.

Optimus Prime winced. Major Lennox was inside Marin. The take-off speed utilised by Starscream may have gravely injured – or even killed – the human male. The Autobot Commander didn't have more time to consider that thought because a scream of rage and anguish took his attention. Coming up behind him, a running Bumblebee had his optics locked on the fleeing Decepticon jet. He had no hope of catching or keeping up with the superfighter but that wasn't going to stop him. His spark told him to protect his femme. Optimus lunged sideways and grabbed the youngling by his waist, lifting him off his feet in a fearsome display of strength and agility for a mech so big. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to crash tackle the maturing mech _twice_ in one day since Bee had been a cheeky giggling sparkling.

"Bumblebee, NO! You cannot get to him!" Prime braced his legs and clutched the struggling young mech flat against the front of his body. "Stand down!"

::_Give him to me. It's better if I do this rather than you, he'll accept it._::

Immediately understanding what his Weapons Specialist was communicating to him over his comlink as he loped across the tarmac, Optimus abandoned his grip on Bee to allow Ironhide to snatch him away. The big black warrior easily threw the yellow mech over his shoulder and kept him there with the kind of force and grip that must have been painful for Bee to bear. Despite this, Bumblebee continued to writhe and howl. Ironhide's optics were hooded and his faceplates were grim. This was why he was handling Bee instead of Prime. 'Hide wasn't afraid of applying enough force to cause moderate pain, where as Optimus would not be so firm and would worry about damaging his relationship with the young scout.

"Prowl, report," Optimus turned to his right, demanding a sit-rep from his 2IC.

"Tracking disabled with scramblers, satellites blocked, last trajectory shown as heading south-west with a possible destination of somewhere in or beyond South America. That's all I've got right now." Prowl's tone was flat. His logic centres were calculating and hypothesising the situation several thousand times a second. Nearly all the outcomes were presenting to him as one or both of 'Screamer's hostages expiring in the next solar cycle.

Prime growled. His optics swept over his milling warriors. Only Primus knew what travelling such a long distance at speed and in the ungentle hands of Starscream was going to do to Marin and Major Lennox. Will was a tough soldier. Marin was a civilian. He could only hope that the Autobot femme was tough enough to hang on and survive her harsh treatment in the hands of the Seeker. Femmes were resilient, but with Marin being injured as well... he dimmed his optics in pain. Yet again his Autobots were at a horrible disadvantage because none of their number here had a flight mode that could keep up with Starscream. Even if the humans were waiting and ready with their own supersonic aircraft – which they hadn't been – they weren't a match for Decepticon air superiority.

Another choked scream of fury from Bumblebee brought him out of his reverie. Bee had transformed his forearm into his particle cannon and was fighting to get free from Ironhide. The senior mech wasn't having a happy time trying to calm him down. Another bot brushed unapologetically past him. Ratchet. With a small tranq-gun held in his right hand. Prime stayed silent when he realised what the medic was about to do.

"Get his head back," the yellow-green CMO barked as he approached, his 'Search and Rescue' markings flashing as he moved.

Ironhide reached over his shoulder, roughly pushed his thumb underneath Bumblebee's jaw, and forced the young mechs head to flex backwards. Ratchet used the cleared space to slide the nasty point of his tranq-gun into an exposed energon line underneath Bee's neck armor and deploy his sedative.

Watching what was happening from behind Ironhide, Optimus Prime met Bumblebee's gaze just as the drug flooded his system. Locked with the Autobot Commander's worried stare, the Camaro's optics burned brightly for a second, making the spark in Prime's chest clench with sorrow and anguish that Bee was being forcibly sedated. It was the only way. Then the smaller mechs optics went dark. He slumped as a dead weight on top of Ironhide's sturdy shoulder and his humming solar cannon powered down with a dying hum. Optimus bowed his head, glancing away as Ironhide handed over Bee into Ratchet's arms to be taken away.

"Get that femme back, Prime."

Optimus lifted his head to look at Ratchet. In his arms, Bumblebee looked like an oversized recharging yellow sparkling. It was the same image that Optimus had lovingly tucked away in his memory tracks of a much younger and smaller Bumblebee when Ratchet had often carried the recharging baby bot to his little berth after passing out in the rec room. It made Optimus feel very old and long for past times.

"I'll take care of him, YOU just get his female back," Ratchet said as he stared sternly at his leader and friend, "and you will get her back. And Lennox." A statement of fact and demand.

Prime could only nod affirmatively. "Yes. We will." His tone strengthened. "I will." He'd do anything to bring Bee's femme back safely for him. 'Anything' encompassed quite a lot when it came to a mech with the power and intelligence that was Optimus Prime.

The medic's optics narrowed. "Good."

Optimus wasn't the only one who watched Bumblebee be carried away. His other soldiers did too. Autobot and human.

_**Far away with Starscream...**_

Lennox didn't know how he survived the rough trip forced upon him by Starscream. The take-off from the Autobot base had made him pass out for God knows how long. Rollercoasters had nothing on what the Decepticon could do. The rest of the flight had passed painfully and very unhappily. He kept pleading with Marin to say something, anything, but her damaged metal form only emitted lifeless creaks to accompany the back and forth swaying caused by Starscream's flight.

Will didn't know what he had expected to happen when Screamer descended to the ground – dropped from a great height? Tossed? Thrown? - and he was silently grateful when Marin was lowered slowly enough so that she came to rest on her mangled wheels with no violent drama. Just the kiss of her rubber on the dirt. The deafening roar of the Decepticons thrusters just above their heads was the only bad part of it. Will's eardrums kept ringing for the next few minutes. His headache was bad enough that he wanted to throw-up all over Marin's dashboard.

This time when Starscream crouched in front of the windscreen to stare at him, Lennox was ready. "Tell me what you want and leave Marin out of it." His voice was hoarse but defiant and had a 'don't-give-me-shit' tone to it. His eyes were pure steel glaring in demand at the 'Con from under his blood soaked fringe.

"The squishie who plays at being a soldier can indeed speak. You are an educated ape, aren't you?" Starscream poked at Marin's cracked windscreen and grinned in satisfaction when Lennox flinched away. "Get out of there gorilla, I want to examine you."

"No," Will growled, fighting to keep his rising anger under control. What did this 'Con think he was doing? Almost killing a civilian Autobot femme, injuring the human inside, and then taking both of them hostage? What was the point? There were at least fifty Autobots on Earth to every single 'Con. It wasn't like they could get anywhere. Not with Optimus Prime ready to bare-handedly rip them into little bits and crush their dead parts to dust in righteous fury.

Starscream smiled, a gruesome one that only added to the ugliness of his faceplates, "You won't come out to play? Then I will take off the door and grab you, it will only take a mom-"

"NO! Don't!" Lennox rubbed his hand haphazardly over his forehead and waited for his sickening dizziness and heavy nausea to pass. "Ugh... I'll – I'll come out." The last thing poor Marin needed was parts of her body being ripped off. The Autobots were living beings, taking off her door would be like chopping off one of her arms or legs. That was horrific.

"Then do so." Starscream said coldly, dropping his formerly playful candour. "Now."

"...Right..." Lennox muttered. Using his one good hand he got Marin's mangled door open easily enough (testament to brilliantly tough Autobot engineering), and tried to keep his wincing and exclamations of pain to a minimum. He knew that if the urge to vomit became too much, he'd do it on Starscream's clawed feet. What a good idea.

When he was outside he gingerly held his injured arm against his torso and looked around. Forest. Mountains. Could be anywhere really. He wished he'd paid more attention in geography. He _screamed_ when a clawed hand grabbed the shoulder that was nursing his broken arm.

"Oh, that's right, you can't turn off your pain sensors can you," Starscream snorted, dangling a moaning and feebly hunched up Lennox from his pinched fingertips in front of his faceplates. "Pity." His optics glinted with glee. "For you."

Starscream was so occupied with the cursing human hanging from his hand (this was the first human he'd gotten to touch and the scientist part of him was intrigued) that it took him a few seconds to realise that the painful grinding of metal and the sound of glass shattering that he had his back turned to was important.

"Marin!" Lennox gasped.

The Decepticon spun around – making Will yell as his body was wrenched from side to side – to be confronted by a very pissed off Marin pointing a standard issue Autobot gun at Starscream's head with one shaking hand. She was crushed, injured, broken glass from her windows surrounded her feet and she had multiple fluids dripping and running all over her body. And she was furious.

"Put. Him. Down." Marin's optics flared angrily as she spoke. Her hand with the gun stretched up towards the 'Con. "NOW!"

Being an evil male Decepticon with extensive knowledge and experience of how to deal with the offended opposite sex (if the angelic Autobot males thought they had trouble with the girls and they were the good guys, they needed to walk in the armor of a 'Con) Starscream stared at her with a cool expression. His scanners told him everything he needed to know. Sparkrate, energon flow, the spikes of emotion in her CPU. From his rapid assessment, she'd scream and run the moment he even snarled at her. So he did. He gave her the kind of snarl that Megatron used to do when he was about to rip out your spark and feed it to you via his hand shoved down your throat.

Marin flinched. The point of her gun dropped downwards in her nervous grip – and Starscream whacked it out of her grasp in one violent swipe. The femme started to back up with her hands held in front of her defensively.

"Put him down? Put _this_, down?" Holding Lennox like a toy, Starscream advanced on her. "What about if I 'put him down' from a great height." The jet held his hand above his head with Will struggling within his palm. "From here? This high? He wouldn't expire but his screaming from pain would be hysterically entertaining."

The small sky-blue femme gasped when he grabbed her by the throat. His silver claws dug into her plating. It hurt. With his overwhelming size and strength making the outcome easy for him, Starscream dragged her close up to his body and he held her there. Letting her struggle. His optics locked on hers.

"D-Do what you-you-you want. Just leave Lennox a-a-alone," Marin stuttered, trying to reign in her fear and terror. "Please. P-Please?" Whatever happened, she wanted Bumblebee to know that she'd fought back. That she'd tried. That she'd honored his name and spark by doing what she could. She shuttered her optics and tried to remember the last embrace Bumblebee had ever given her. It was better than thinking of her own death. "Please..."

Major Lennox held his breath and waited to see what would happen. He could hardly hold his own head up above Screamer's fingers. He wanted to vomit from dizziness, his headache, and pain, but he kept himself in check. Just.

Starscream stayed motionless with his helpless hostages waiting on the outcome. Then he huffed and turned around, dragging Marin along with him.

_**Autobot base...**_

Mirage found Optimus Prime leaning on the door to the medbay, his expression that of someone haunted as he stared disconsolately down the hallway. Mirage didn't want to guess at what painful emotions were swirling through the spark and CPU of his Commander. Optimus had always treasured the females he had come across, he considered himself their unofficial protector and advocate, so the big mech had to be hurting to think of Marin being snatched away right in front of him and Bumblebee nearly falling to pieces at the loss of his femme.

"Boss?"

Optimus looked down at his best spy and infiltrator. "Yes Mirage?"

The white and blue racing car braced himself proudly. "I fired a microtracer onto Starscream before he beat it. I thought it hadn't worked or it had been shaken off, I couldn't get a signal from it, but I tried a few things to get a result, and," Mirage handed over a datapad of data to the bigger male, "see for yourself."

Prime straightened up from his lean and activated the pad with his thumb. His optics widened as he read it. His head snapped up. "Good work Mirage." He warmly gripped the shoulder armor of his soldier. "Good work."


	19. Chapter 19

**Birds and Bumblebees**

Authors Note: This has been a long time coming. My brain has been welded shut with the worst kind of writers block imaginable. It must be close to a year since I posted a chapter on any of my fanfics and for that I sincerely apologise. Big thanks to everyone who has been following my work and leaving reviews. You guys helped pick me up and get my aft rolling again. Even bigger thanks must go to my friends who consistently dropped by my inbox just to check that I was ok and actually still alive, LOLZ! I received many hugs and encouraging pats on the head from lots of people (I'm not at home at the moment so I can't list all the names, darn it! I don't want to leave anyone's name out) and I'm grateful and stunned that so many friends wanted to know what I was up to and if I needed anything. I think that says more than anything what great people fanfic readers and writers are, especially Transformers ones. We have a great community here on FFN and I'm thankful to be a member of it.

Just a quick recap since it has been so long since I posted the last chapter of this – many years have passed since the events of TF:ROTF, with the Autobots making a thriving community of their own on Earth. The only Decepticon still on Earth (or so the Autobots thought!) is Barricade and he rarely makes a spectacle of himself, much preferring to stay out of everyone's way. A bomb which took out the Autobot Command Centre and the living quarters of Optimus Prime (leaving he and Elita One buried under the debris and almost taking their lives) shattered the peace in one foul blow. Starscream has now made an opportunistic appearance by gate-crashing the base and taking off with Bumblebees girlfriend, Marin, and Major Lennox. Now it's time for Prime to make his move and rescue them – but can he? And what does 'Screamer want with Marin and Lennox?

**Chapter 19**

_**Autobot weapons inventory...**_

The two powerful Autobot femmes in the weapons locker were all business. They had to be. With one human man and one very-much-loved Autobot femme in the vicious hands of the enemy, they didn't want to be anything else. Their sparks hurt like blazes for their friends, but their mouths covered up for that fact with some very smooth verbal sparring.

"You take the two launchers; your subspace pocket has better stabilisers so they don't get shaken up." Elita One slid the launchers across the table using the ends of long and slender fingers. "The perks of you having a weapons mech for a sparkmate, yes?"

Chromia gave the Femme Commander a smirk at her reference to Ironhide, pulling the missile launchers over to her side of the big table in the armory. "Yes indeedy. His other perk is how fast and hard his crotch-"

Elita One grimaced and turned her head away while holding up her hand to say 'stop'. "I don't want to know about Ironhide's crotch. That's your territory, not mine."

"As it should be," the deep blue colored femme shot back, picking up a very large pulse rifle and slamming an energy cartridge into it, ratcheting it, locking the safety latch down, then lining it up perfectly with her other weapons on the tabletop without looking at it. "You put your hands on my 'Hide, and I'll rip them off and introduce them to your aft port."

Chromia knew every weapon the Autobots used (and a lot they didn't) back to front and upside down. Foreplay between her and Ironhide often involved each of them choosing a weapon for the other without them seeing it, and then stripping it, cleaning it and re-assembling it with their optics turned off so they couldn't see what they were doing. It was a test of expertise or a way of showing off, whichever sounded best. Of course, Chromia sometimes put her hands on the wrong 'weapon' when she was sitting cross-legged across from her sparkmate, but Ironhide never complained when her hand wandered over and ending up feeling around his conveniently naked groin. It helped that Chromia purred and tried to make the 'weapon' go off as she diligently cleaned it and armed it.

"Mmm. At least I have the manners to keep my hands off Optimus when we're in public. You seem to think you're doing a community service by sliding your hands under 'Hide's armor daily to give him a check-up," Elita said with a roll of her optical spheres while steadily filling her side of the table with endless weaponry.

"So what? We only do it in front of bots that we know," Chromia complained. "If you have trouble touching Prime's body in public then that's a problem you need to work on." The blue femme winked, "Emphasis on _working_." She held her hand up and wiggled her fingers rudely.

Elita's optics flared indignantly, "I have never needed to check my mate's parts to make sure they work. Ironhide's may need constant servicing because of wear and tear, but my mech is always in pristine condition."

"Pristine?" Chromia echoed. "If that mech of yours isn't getting dirty enough then you need to try some new positions so it isn't just his knees that get scuffed."

From the outside, to anyone watching the two femmes, it may appear that they were not concerned with the safety of Marin and Lennox, or weren't worried about how Bumblebee was coping. That wasn't true. Both femmes were amassing an optic-widening pile of deadly weapons on the table in front of them. Rifles, grenades, missiles, strafe guns, blades, anything and everything that could be considered deadly and offensive, they were stockpiling it. And they were doing it at a speed that surpassed that of any other femme. Or the majority of mechs. Both of them were using their banter as they always did – as stress relief and to stop themselves from crouching on the floor with their arms around each other for comfort as their sparks began to break for their friends.

Coming down the corridor solo, Optimus Prime halted just outside the doorway of the armory. Watching the two females. His immense physique was a tower of restrained strength and worry. He could feel the tight and tormented emotions coming from Elita over their sparkbond, she was hurting just as much as he was.

Prime took a step into the room. Elita and Chromia stopped bantering. Walking up to the end of the table that was in-between the two femmes, Optimus quietly removed his big rifle from his back, drawing it out in one smooth single movement, and then laid it on the table in the only space that was left. His legendary weapon over-shadowed everything that was there. Elita stared at it. To her, it was an echo of everything that her mate was and stood for – formidable, dangerous, handsome, shiny, and totally passive until provoked. Chromia saw it as the only weapon ever made that could possibly make her apologetically push her beloved mech mate aside for a short moment while she purred and cooed over the famous silver rifle.

Looking over the cache of weapons on the table that the femmes had amassed, the Autobot Leader spoke softly, "Ready?"

Elita lifted her gaze up so her optics moved from Prime's narrow waist, up his chest, past his impossibly wide shoulders, slid along his sharply masculine jawline, and to his intense blue optics. Her own mouthplates were grimly set. "I'd say we were ready the moment Starscream landed on the tarmac."

"Yeah." Chromia flash transported her weapons cache into her subspace pocket, then took her two deadliest rifles in one hand each and laid the business end of them over her shoulders like she was heading out to go fishing with explosives. She grinned up at the massive mech, "I'm ready to rock."

The small smile that appeared on Optimus Prime's faceplates was as close to cold as he would ever get. "Let's roll." He retrieved his rifle, tucked it away over his shoulder onto his back, then swung around and strode off with the two femmes following along behind him.

Starscream was a dead petrorabbit.

_**On the base airstrip...**_

Bumblebee sat on the lowered cargo ramp of the massive C17 plane, his restless optics moving from object-to-object on the busy airfield as he waited for his Commander. His body was relaxed but his CPU wasn't. The intimidating black bulk of Ironhide stood to the side of him. The bigger mech was acting as both caring guardian and stern enforcer to the Camaro. Ironhide stood on wide splayed legs with his arms crossed high over his thick chest, and his shadowed optics rarely strayed from the mech that he had been a loving mentor to for thousands of years.

Bee thought back to what had happened earlier. When the sedative used on him by Ratchet had worn off, the yellow mech had surprised his elders by being calm and motionless. No screaming, no attempt to race out from the medbay, no bristling weapons, no crazy carry-on. Instead, the youngling had a quiet intensity that made the others stand back and re-appraise him.

As Optimus Prime, Ironhide, and Ratchet had looked on, Bumblebee had folded away his weapons into his body so he was unarmed, taken a moment with his head bowed down to gather himself mentally, then looked up at the mechs standing around him and simply said, "I'm ready."

Ironhide had taken one look at him and then turned away, muttering a few curses. He'd seen mechs act like this before, and it had never ended well. Ratchet had deepened the disapproving frown on his faceplates and looked unconvinced. The CMO didn't have the height and mass of the other two mechs but he was damn near enough intimidating without it. Optimus Prime didn't move or speak. Their leader was as silent and emotionless as stone.

"Bumblebee, we believe we know where Starscream is, and naturally, where Marin and Lennox may be as well. I have a team preparing to leave for their location as I speak." Prime was silent for a few sparkbeats. He was making Bumblebee wait to find out if he would be given permission to join them. "I will give my approval for you to join us if you can promise me that you will listen to any orders that I give you, and not allow your instincts to put yourself, or others, in needless danger."

Ironhide grunted, glancing sideways at Prime. That was the nicest and most lenient, 'do as I say or I'll kick your aft' order that he'd heard from Optimus in quite a while. He could read between the lines. 'Listen' to orders? What happened to 'do exactly what I say or you'll be in the brig'? Prime was effectively saying that he knew Bumblebee wouldn't be able to keep control of his protective instincts, but that he expected him to strive to do so, and to keep the safety of himself and everyone else around him at the front of his CPU if he started to irrepressibly glitch. Hmmm. Prime was getting soft in his armor and achingly old...

Optimus took a step closer to his foster youngling, and slid the palm of his hand onto Bumblebee's shoulder. His expression softened. "We will get Marin back, and Lennox as well. Please trust me as you always have before." He squeezed his hand, angling his head down so he could look directly into Bee's optics. "Agreed?"

Bumblebee was nodding before Optimus had finished speaking. "Yes sir. Thank you." He lifted his head even higher, his chin in the air. "I trust you with more than my own spark, I trust you with Marin's as well."

Prime smiled. "Good. Thank you." With a final pat to Bumblebee's shoulder, he stood tall again and looked at his Weapons Specialist. "Ironhide?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ironhide had snorted as he waved one of his mammoth hands in Bee's direction, "I'm youngling-sitting to keep his aft in check. I got it. My foot is armed and ready to boot yellow aft into the next galaxy if he ever needs it."

As Ratchet had gathered up his tools and watched the three mechs leave for their mission, he'd winced when he noticed that Bumblebee didn't react at all to Ironhide's blustering comment. That wasn't good. Not at all. Bumblebee never let Ironhide take a poke at him without some sort of response, no matter how small. A flash of his optics, a finger in the air, a rude sound, an object in his hand to throw – something. Bee was a friendly and jovial mech to everyone except Ironhide. The CMO sighed deeply. His wide and capable shoulders drooped. He wanted everyone back safely so he could continue to lovingly harass and threaten them in his medbay. How else could he tell his friends how much he cared for them if he wasn't able to throw his tools at their stubborn heads?

Back on the tarmac, shaking his head to clear his memories, Bumblebee swiftly got to his feet when he caught sight of Optimus Prime striding across the airfield. Filling up the space behind him were his sparkmate; Elita One; and Ironhide's wicked sparkmate; Chromia. Elita had her rifle on her back, a pulse gun swinging from one thigh, and an assortment of grenades lined up along the outside of her other thigh. Chromia had a big rifle in each of her hands, with the pointy ends of them resting on her shoulders. Sticking out above her back were an assortment of rocket launchers, lasers, and anything else explosive that she could fit compactly in the remaining space upon her overloaded back struts. Bumblebee felt some measure of relief flood his spark when he realised that both of the femmes were packing more weapons on their chassis than he had ever seen on them before.

Optimus slowed his long strides as he got closer, allowing the two females to move past him. The big mech seemed to briefly consider the amount of weaponry covering the two femme warriors, then a bright flash on his back signalled the arrival from subspace of a new weapon attached to his broad frame between his shoulders – a massive broadsword made of deep blue metal with a thick chrome hilt. A sword bigger than the arm blades that Optimus usually used in combat. Bumblebee's optics widened. He hadn't seen _that_ one before. Maybe Prime had felt a little small and under-armed compared to the femmes. Whatever the reason, Bee had no need to worry that they were going to be unprepared for this mission.

With a grunt of satisfaction, Ironhide propped his fists on his hips and held his head up proudly, "That's my femme." He glanced at Bumblebee standing beside him, and then jerked his thumb in the direction of the planes interior as its engines began to power up. "Load up, youngling. We've got some friends to save and a Decepticon to turn inside out."

Bumblebee waited respectfully for Optimus to move past him first. The Autobot Commander gave Bumblebee a supportive nod, and briefly held his hand to his chest above his spark without saying anything. Bee touched his own hand to his chest in response and then saluted.

No words needed.

_**Marin and Lennox...**_

Major Will Lennox stared at the rock wall containing them with an expressionless blank stare that was beginning to worry Marin. Ever since several hours ago when Starscream had dragged and carried them to this mediocre cavity in the cliff wall, the pair of them had made inconsequential small talk.

'You okay?'

'Yeah. Well, maybe not. Heh. What about you?'

'Pretty stuffed, some of it hurts, the rest is numb.'

'Better than all of it hurting', 'Uh huh, keep telling me that'.

After dumping both of them in the cavity, Starscream had gleefully shown them what would happen if they tried to get past the electrical field blocking the exit by picking up a metal bar from the ground and tossing it at the cascading waves of electricity. If the sight of burnt and twisted metal on the ground hadn't been warning enough, the Decepticon Air Commander chucking a poor seagull into it was even worse. Lennox had winced and brushed away the particles of fried black soot that landed on his face. Marin had turned her head away from the grotesque sight, lowering her gaze and staring at the ground in front of her with a shaken and disturbed expression on her faceplates.

Will sat with his back to the wall and tried not to remember that in too much detail. He wondered if Marin thought about the charred and twisted metal in the same way as he remembered the bird.

"I'm sorry that I don't know how to help you with your injuries," Marin bowed her head and stared at her hands linked in her lap, "all of my uplinks are currently blocked. I can't access any medical information that may help you."

Lennox coughed and wiped away some bloody froth from his lips. The off-coloured spittle worried him, but at least he wasn't feeling nauseous anymore. It was getting progressively harder for him to breathe though. His lungs felt full and heavy. "No matter. Don't blame yourself. We have no medical supplies in any case." He sighed and looked sideways at her, "There's nothing to be done." It felt strange to be next to such a small Transformer. Having spent so much of his time being a groupie of Optimus Prime, Ironhide, and the other big mechs, it felt disorientating to be with the small femme. It also made him feel that he should be trying to protect her. He was the man. She was the woman – of sorts. It was frustrating to him that due to his injuries he was currently not capable enough to help her.

He closed his eyes and rested the back of his head on the wall. Where were the others?

_**The Autobot rescue party...**_

Optimus Prime sat in the cargo bay of the C-17. Silent and contemplative. Elita One sat by his side. Due to his bulk, he was positioned at the end of the bay closest to the pilots, midway to the nose of the aircraft. This meant the other Autobots and heavy equipment could be spread out comfortably towards the rear of the plane to make an even weight distribution. His back was resting on the dividing wall, with his long legs drawn up in front of him. His hands rested in his lap. He was careful not to move from his designated position as doing so would de-stabilise the plane. He was allocated one spot to sit in and he wasn't allowed to move. Being big, powerful and awesome sometimes had its drawbacks...

_::Sir, all reports indicate a lack of activity at the landing site. Starscream does not yet appear to know what is heading his way.::_

Optimus cocked his head at the comlink transmission from his SIC who was on the other C17 flying in tandem with them, _::Thank __you Prowl. The less he knows or suspects, the better.:: _Prime's optics locked onto Bumblebee's bowed head._ ::For all of us.::_

Ironhide butted himself into the comlink channel, _::Hey, I want him to fear what's going to happen to him. He should be fluffing burnt energon from his exhaust pipe from terror.::_

Leaning against the tall side of her bonded mate, Elita threw in her thoughts. _::If we __wanted him to do that we'd air-drop a very slagged off Ratchet in there, __hand him his best laser scalpels to play with __and then run like the pit::_

Optimus smiled wryly and patted his femme indulgently on her head. He then felt relieved when his actions got a small smile from the watching Bumblebee. The Autobot Commander's thoughts were interrupted by a solemn announcement from the pilot.

"_Prepare for air drop in fifteen minutes._"

All of the Transformers and their human allies began checking their equipment and weapons and just about every one of them had a mental image of Starscream's smoking and deactivated chassis in their heads as their mission objective.

_**Marin and Lennox...**_

Starscream had been entering and exiting the clearing in front of Marin and Lennox's imprisonment cave for the last hour or two. The big winged mech would walk in, stare at the two of them, frown, then leave. It was making his captives nervous. Mostly he stared at Marin, sized her up, cocked his head to one side, then swung around and left. Lennox was wondering if he was building a barbeque to roast them on, or something similar. Or even turn Marin into a kid's bicycle, if that was the kind of concept that scared Transformers.

"He seems to like you," Lennox murmured to the Autobot femme as 'Screamer left them for the umpteenth time.

"Is that worse than hating me?" Marin queried back softly.

"When it comes to Decepticons, I have no idea," Will sighed, staring up at the stone ceiling of their prison. He was still sore and injured, but at least he wasn't hungry. Marin had given him some dried fruit bars to eat from a compartment in her midsection – part of Elita One's preliminary military training to consider all aspects of the needs of their military companions, of which first aid and energy rations was high on the list. Marin had also drained out some water from within her own systems, assuring him that she had filtered it sufficiently so it would have no adverse effects on him, either toxic or bacterial.

Marin's gentle voice interrupted his thoughts. "I miss him."

"Bumblebee?" Will asked.

"Yes." She hesitated for a moment before adding, "Very much."

"Well, let me say I'm very confident that you and he will be back together very shortly, and when you do, can you do me a favour?"

Marin blinked her optic sweepers at him, "Of course. Anything."

Will grinned lopsidedly and reached up to pat her arm fondly, "Drag him over right in front of Ironhide and give him the biggest kiss ever. Bumblebee I mean, not 'Hide. It'll piss him off. I've been waiting for-" Lennox paused mid-sentence. "Hear that?"

The sky blue femme by his side lifted her optics up to stare at the roof of their prison. "An aircraft?"

"Yeah. An aircraft," Will struggled to sit more upright while glancing out the metal columns of their confined cage as the roar of the plane grew louder, "That's a C17!" He thumped a fist on the dirt floor of their prison in eagerness. "Man, Prime and good old NEST are pulling one outta the bag for us!"

Marin hugged her arms around herself and bowed her head, "Thank Primus..." Her communications systems frantically tried to make contact with the plane or whoever was riding inside of it, but she was still being blocked. All of her pings and open relays were meet with a heavy black fuzz.

"But..." Will's voice softened, "it's leaving." He frowned. "A drop-in, maybe?"

"Drop? Drop what?" Marin asked.

Will gestured at her to be silent with one raised hand. Marin kept her mouthplates shut. The human and Cybertronian stayed quiet, listening and anticipating for something to happen.

The ferocious impact of a huge and solid mass landing and crashing through the portion of forest just beyond their prison made Marin pray to Primus and Lennox to weakly pump a fist with a silly grin on his face. The tell-tale gleam and glint of red, blue, and chrome armor only offered glimpses of themselves through the forest undergrowth but they both knew who that particular mech was, one of the most comforting and welcoming sights Will Lennox and Marin could ever hope for – Autobot Commander, Optimus Prime. He came striding out on long legs past the tall trees and through the clearing with his battle mask covering his face, his massive rifle gripped in one hand, and his blue optics blazing to the point of looking like unholy fire. The odd bit of plant greenery sticking to his armor in no way diminished his triumphant arrival.

Prime had arrived.

"Optimus!" Marin scrambled inelegantly to try and get to her feet, but her painful injuries robbed her of her ability to stand fully upright. She was crouching with one leg held out to the side and her torso bent like a banana over her upper legs.

"Don't forget Ironhide..." Will panted, using her awkwardly extended leg to haul himself upright while squinting to look past the metallic bulk of the Autobot Commander to see who else was with him.

The human was right. Following on Prime's aft was the intimidating black mass of his Weapons Specialist, Ironhide. Where those two were concerned, one was never far from the other when it came to battlefield situations.

"Marin, Major," Optimus said with relief as he halted in front of their cave. He ducked his head below the level of the stone roof to assess their situation. His optic sweepers clicked at them. "If you would be so kind as to stand back at an appropriate distance, I believe I will be able to release you from your confinement."

"Hurry it up Prime, he's coming," Ironhide said gruffly, keeping his optics trained on a point above and to the right of them.

Optimus waited while Marin turned herself around on her knees to face away from the cave front and provide Lennox with protection at the same time. Then the big Commander flexed his right arm so that his rifle was pointing at a spot on the ground to the left of him. His optics narrowed, and he pulled the trigger. A small explosion signalled the demise of a buried generator that powered the electrical bars. An even bigger one that was the backlash of power from the powerplant, exploded the wiring that ran all around the caves entrance. Bits of rock, powder and black particles showered the immediate area.

"Time to leave." Prime got down on his knees and reached out to his friends with his free hand. He saw Lennox's ash-smeared face appear from under Marin's arm, and he smiled with relief, his optics dimming. It took Marin herself a moment more to gather herself together and begin to turn around. It was then that Prime's optics widened involuntarily at the damage she was bearing from Starscream's initial attack back at the base. She was so ripped, bent, and twisted that he honestly didn't understand how she was able to kneel upright at all. The hand that she reached out towards him with was shaking. "Primus..." Optimus whispered, taking her slender hand into his own wide grasp and closing his fingers around her softly.

Outside the cave, Ironhide growled and stiffened. "Prime, get back on your feet."

"Deal with it, 'Hide." Optimus ordered as he gripped Marin's small hand and began to help her shuffle and slide her way over to the safety of his presence. When a femme was injured, she became his highest priority.

Ironhide lifted his chin proudly, turned his big body to face the oncoming threat and rolled the massive chambers on his arm-mounted cannons, "Yeah." His optics narrowed. "I'll shake him and bake him."

Starscream was walking towards them with no apparent concern for his own safety. He was armed, but he wasn't pointing his weapons towards the Autobots.

"On your hands and knees again, Prime?" Starscream mocked, ignoring the angry flare of orange plasma directed at his faceplates by Ironhide's cannons. "I expected no less from such a weak leader."

"Stay calm, Ironhide, don't take his head off just yet," Prime responded. He was holding Marin close to his body with one arm, while carrying a grimacing-in-pain Major Lennox in his other hand. Epps trotted over to Prime and gestured for the big robot to put his best friend down.

"Just you? Only you? No other backup?" Starscream sneered at Ironhide. "Is this the best the Autobots can muster now?"

A slow smile appeared on Ironhide's roughly handsome faceplates. He shrugged one hulking shoulder without concern. His voice was hard and utterly male. "We've never needed to do much to deal with the likes of you, Starslag." A serious of thumps and grunts from the other side of the clearing made Ironhide's crooked smile grow wider. "But just to make your day brighter, we've brought a few friends along."

Starscream glanced behind him – to see a handful of human NEST soldiers, accompanied by Optimus Prime's second-in-command; Prowl; and spear-headed by a medium-sized yellow mech who had an expression of utter fury spread over his facial features.

Bumblebee.

Ah, the irritated and angry male partner of Marin.

'Screamer flexed the wings on his back. This was going just as he had hoped it would. The injured female, her angry lover, the incompetent leader and his psycho weapons specialist – and a group of observatory humans. Knowing what was to come next, this was the best he could have asked for. Brilliant. Even Megatron would've been patting him on the head if he'd been still functioning.

Bee strode across the clearing like he owned it. He didn't rush, or run, or cry out. He was solidly composed. His focus was purely on the small injured femme being held up by his Commander. As Prime turned towards him to transfer his femme cargo, Bee folded his arm cannon away into his forearm in a swift serious of clicks and whirrs. His composure lowered just enough for him to crack a whimper when Optimus eased the disorientated Marin into his open yellow arms. Carrying his beloved cargo, Bumblebee then started walking backwards, keeping one optic on Starscream while glancing down at his beloved femme. The loving scene of Bee cradling his small blue female in his arms was contrasted by the welcome being handed out to Major Lennox by Sergeant Epps.

"Hey! YOU! Watchu doin' getting taken hostage by this loser and hav'n the shit beaten outta ya, eh? Saving girls again?" Epps carefully eased Lennox's weak arm around his own shoulder as he continued his non-stop stream of rough loving. "Mah man, ya just like the extra pay and accolades. Admit it!" Epps rambled as he began half-carrying Will to a safe distance back from the others. Now was not the time to get caught in an alien robot shitfight.

Will was smiling weakly and feebly nodding his head. His feet dragged but he could walk somewhat. "Yeah... the extra pay, ugh," he shook his head to clear it, "does it for me every time. Oww." The exertion from being on his feet and upright was taxing him close to his limits.

Lennox felt the eyes of the other soldiers upon him. Despite his relief at being rescued, he was self-conscious about his physical state. His uniform was ripped and practically made of dirt, and he had several days' worth of stinky sweat on his skin. Due to the thick grime on his face his features were abnormally shadowed. Blood stains wouldn't shock anybody, that was normal soldier stuff, but the uncharacteristic expression of 'I've had it' on his wearied face would shake them though. Will couldn't remember a time when his body had been so mucked up. That was saying something considering the type of soldier he was.

"Marin?"

At the sound of Bumblebee's vocaliser, the blue femme tried to focus more clearly on the handsome faceplates of her mech partner. "Sorry Bee. I c-can't... I'm all stuffed up. Couldn't..." she shuttered her optics tiredly, "...couldn't help it. He hit me too fast." The hold of her one good hand on Bee's chest armor started to weaken. "Too quick."

A purring sound came from Bee's chest. He bent his head down momentarily to brush her petite noseplates with his broader ones. "You're safe with us now."

"Dear Primus... 'You're safe with us now'!" Starscream parroted Bee sarcastically. "Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like purging all over my own feet."

Optimus and Ironhide shared a glance. This was weird. Screamer had a multitude of rifles and weaponry pointed at his head and chest, he had the best Autobots (his natural enemy) surrounding him – including the best of the best in Optimus Prime - he'd just had his precious captives taken away from him so his previous advantageous bargaining chips were now null, and still he was puffing out his chest and acting _normal_? This was usually the point when Starscream sneered at everyone and took off into the sky while leaving a stinky cloud of jet vapour behind him. But he wasn't. So what was the 'Con really up to?

Acting on reflex, Optimus Prime scanned the immediate area (above AND below ground) with his sensors, searching for heavy ordnance and disguised bombs. His time squashed under a building with his beloved sparkmate had made him wary of surprise explosions. His scans came up clean. Obviously, 'Screamer wasn't going to blow them all up. Nor could he try and take at least one; or a few of them; out – what would be the point? Being surrounded by Autobots meant that he'd get his head taken off or his spark blown out of his chest by the remaining mechs. Starscream was a giant pain in the aft, but he wasn't that stupid.

Prime cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. There was something wrong with all of this, but what? He met the optics of his arriving sparkmate Elita One with trepidation and confusion. Elita stood on the other side of the clearing with a small squadron of human soldiers. The human men clustered around her feet looked like her adoring pets. The shadows of the encompassing forest shadowed her body and leant her dark red armor a menacing air. Just because she was female and of small physical build didn't make her any less formidable than her giant mech mate.

"Looking good, Prime. Got waxed? New paintjob? All new parts?" Starscream announced into the loaded silence. He waved one clawed grey hand around expansively in Prime's direction. "Getting a good deal from the humans are you? Being well looked after?"

"What are you on about?" Ironhide demanded, grunting dismissively.

"What are you attempting to ask, Starscream?" Prime rumbled quietly. "Get to the point."

"Ask? Why I should I be able to ask for anything? That is your domain. The Autobot domain. I'm a Decepticon, remember?" Starscream spat. "You get everything you want." He jabbed his own finger into his own chest. "We don't!"

"...Isn't 'we' a term that commonly describes two or more items? How can he describe only himself as 'we'?" Prowl murmured lightly with a querying arch of one optic ridge. He was a stickler for correct terms. Correct anything, actually.

Optimus held a hand of 'shush' out towards Prowl and the others while he kept Starscream engaged. "I would dispute that statement. I do not get 'everything' I or the others 'want'. We have worked hard towards our goals purely for the good of others who cannot adequately defend themselves against those who seek to destroy or control them. The actions of myself or those with me have never been about being rewarded or gaining wealth."

Starscream stalked forwards a few paces so he stood a mere one stride away from Optimus. Ironhide's cannons whirred as he increased their power intake and prepared to fire. "YOU -", Screamer stood up on the points of his feet to gain height against Prime's vertical supremacy, "have everything you WANT."

Prime's optics darkened and his optic ridges slanted down dangerously, "What are you-" He was cut off mid-sentence.

"SHUT IT! The humans supply what you want, when you want it, and in abundance. Fuel, shelter, autonomy, citizenship rights, credits, ANYTHING!" The Decepticon stood up even further so his head was almost level with Prime's jutting metallic chin. "Why can't the Decepticons get that too?" His words were turning into a shriek. "Are we bad because we want things for ourselves?"

Elita was watching Prime's reaction to Starscream's outburst. She could feel his emotions over the sparklink she shared with him. However, it was the little physical clues that Prime was doing that gave her additional insight since Optimus kept his emotions locked down and contained. The hand that wasn't holding his rifle was slowly clenching into a tight fist. The rest of his body gave little away, as always.

Prime's expression was stoic as he considered 'Screamers words. "I don't murder innocents. You, on the other hand..."

"No, you just murder those who oppose your peaceful ways!" Starscream raged on. "That's not 'peaceful'! How many Decepticons have been terminated because they got in your way? HOW MANY? You wanted Cybertron as your own just as badly as Megatron did!"

In Bumblebee's arms, Marin peered at Starscream ranting away. She let her body sink deeper into his embrace to make her feel more protected. Couldn't they just leave him? Why were they all staying to hear what he wanted to carry on about? If he didn't have an audience he couldn't rant at anybody.

Prowl cocked his head at Optimus. When the big Commander gave his quiet approval via a nod to Prowl's internal comlink query, the SIC spoke up. "Starscream, if you do not like it here why do you not leave?"

"On what _ship_? Using which power sources?" Starscream's body bent over into a crouch. His optics flared a deep crimson. "I have no ship, and I can no more break into your Autobot ship and steal yours to leave here than I could gloriously interface your precious Prime in his aft port!"

A few muffled snickers echoed around the clearing at the idea of Starscream vigorously fucking Optimus Prime in the aft. Elita looked disgusted and lifted the point of her rifle to point it at 'Screamers face. Prime appeared unmoved, his large body standing straight and tall; sparkling-like insults always failed to penetrate his psychological armor.

::_This isn't getting us anywhere. Rip his spark out and let __us leave, Lennox and Marin require medical attention.::_ Ironhide communicated internally to Optimus.

Optimus considered that momentarily (the leaving part, not the spark ripping part) while he let his optics watch what was happening with Marin. Bumblebee had carefully set his femme down on the ground and let her rest with her back against a large tree. He was kneeling next to her and assessing her injuries and making minor repairs. 'Hide was right. It was past time to leave. Truth be told, he was also unsettled by Starscreams twisted statements of fury. But what were they going to do about him? Kill him? That would be another nail in the crypt labelled 'the Autobots caused as much destruction in their own way as the Decepticons did'. Starscream's argument was one that had haunted Prime's CPU for many a cycle since the war turned into the slaughter of innocents to achieve a goal; be it good (Prime ruled) or bad (Megatron won).

Before any other byte of data concerning the conumdrum was processed in Optimus Prime's legendary CPU, the squealing of multiple alerts from monitoring systems rocked everyone in the clearing.

"INCOMING!" Ironhide roared, spinning himself around on the spot with his arms raised so his cannons pointed up into the sky. Plasma from his formidable weapons started strafe firing the airspace above them in powerful booms of bright blue plasma. "Take cover!"

Prime cursed himself to Primus when he realised what was happpening. They'd considered every eventuality except one, and now they were being punished for it. Missiles from beyond the Earths atmosphere were raining down on them and because their trajectory was from above the atmosphere and came straight down at them from space, their normal warning systems were too slow to give them any advance warnings like they would have had if the missiles had been fired from somewhere on Earth. The satelittes picked them up, sure, but everything was too quick for any of them to do anything about it except for hearing the warning at the same time as the missiles were in their faceplates.

Then something else sent Optimus into a another 'what the?' moment.

The missiles were very poor missiles. The smallish projectiles slammed into the ground or Cybertronian armor – and disintergrated like fireworks. They were bursts of bright particles that disappeared as fast as they had arrived. They were loud, they were bright, and while they could kill the humans, they did nothing to hurt the Autobots. Prime and his Cybertronian soldiers stood around providing cover for those smaller and more vulnerable than themselves.

"I KNOW WHAT HURTS YOU, PRIME! IF YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING ELSE, YOU'LL UNDERSTAND THIS!"

Starscream's piercing scream of fury made Optimus swing around to face him in the chaos. The Decepticon Air Commander was firing upon Marin. Another wave of missiles disorientated the Autobot Commander, and he held one arm over his head while his other arm hefted his rifle. Bumblebee had been partially covering Marin and inadvertantly protecting her. The scouts attention was focused on what was coming down from the sky instead of the threat that Starscream now posed, and that was his undoing. Bee was thrown aside in a scorched yellow heap by the electro-charged null bolts from Starscream's weapons. Leaving Marin vulnerable and in danger.

It was all too quick. Too sudden. Too loud. Too chaotic. Too much. Everyone else was too far away or too occupied. Starscream's arm was raised. His weapon was in Marin's terrified faceplates.

Prime moved. Driven by a surge of power down his physique that slammed his feet into the ground and propelled his body towards the mech now threatening an Autobot femme, Optimus slammed sideways into Starscream. The big Autobot wasn't one to leave things to chance. At the same time as he physically rammed Starscream, he activated his rifle and fired it, reasoning that if one tactic didn't work, another would. By slamming Starscream aside or shooting his spark out, either way, Marin would be protected. Prime's own protocols for the protection of others – especially females - demanded nothing less.

The shocking thud of many tons of alien mech colliding with the ground combined with the explosive concussion of Optimus Prime's signature rifle discharging got everyone's attention. As did the sudden absence of missiles from above. Through the haze of smoke and blackened particles that filled the battle site, every soldier turned their attention to what had happened between Starscream and Optimus.

Marin sat frozen, her optics locked on the corpse of Starscream who was stretched out underneath the bulk of a hovering-on-all-fours Optimus Prime. What had been a living threat to her only a second ago was now a cooling wreck of metal underneath the Autobot Commander. Her optics travelled over Starscream's blown out chest, locking onto the hole where his spark chamber had once been. His chest was achingly empty of a lifespark. Hesitantly, she raised her optics to look at Optimus. She then looked at Bumblebee knocked out on her other side with his armor littered by the black marks of concussive blasts.

Then she started to manically scream.

Over and over again.

**NEXT:** The citizens of Earth pass judgement on the Autobots and the Decepticons after the incident (and words) between Optimus Prime and Starscream goes global. One shall rise... and the other shall be banished to the other end of the universe. For good.


End file.
